The challenge here is you are mixing data types. I would recommend using a table with names in one variable and corresponding number in a second variable. Something like this could work.
data = readtable("ChlorThanks.xlsx","ReadVariableNames",false)
name = string(data.Var1(1:2:end));
val = str2double(data.Var1(2:2:end));
newData = table(name,val)
