Forum Discussion
Stop First Row Being Numbered in Excel
Based on my experience and everything I've ever read, there is no way to change excel's row/column labels via excel's menu or vba, which is what it appears you are asking.
You can hide or unhide the row/column labels, and while you might be able to use a formula to visually replicate row/column label(s), either the custom row or column label won't agree to the actual cell references in your existing formulas, which comes back to Peter's comment regarding it would work better in a structured named environment.
You could do this (replicating excel's column letters), for example, but your data table row 1 will actually be Excel's row 3 (still mismatched, but it wouldn't be as obvious).
Seriously, I don't see any available options that I think you will like based on what you've said thus far.
Thanks.
Riny_van_Eekelen showed you how to switch of the built-in display of row and column headings. You can then use worksheet cells to build index arrays to match your actual data by formula.
If you insist on using the built-in heading, but wish to show custom values, then the answer is "Seriously, no one can tell you how to do this" because it probably implies rewriting Excel to allow zero and negative row numbers.