VBA - Create new worksheets based on a range with invalid worksheet characters

Question

I'm trying to figure out a way to loop through a variable row of data and create Worksheet names based on the cell. The issue I'm having is that each cell has the following two issues:

1. They have invalid '/' characters that I would like to replace with a blank space ' ' i.e. 5000111/01/18 - ideally this would be changed to worksheet tab '01 18 SICS'
2. There will be duplicate cells with the same cell reference and I only want one worksheet

Here is my code that I have so far

Sub Format()

    Dim lastRow As Long
    Dim sheetName As String
    Dim workbookCount As Long
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim match As Boolean

    'Turn off Screen updating
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    
    'Rename Sheet1 as AR
    Worksheets("Sheet1").Name = "AR"
    
    lastRow = Sheets("AR").Range("A2").End(xlDown).Row

    For i = 2 To lastRow
    match = False
    sheetName = Sheets("AR").Cells(i, 1).Text

    For Each ws In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
        If ws.Name = sheetName Then
            match = True
        End If
    Next

    If match = False Then
        Worksheets.Add(After:=Worksheets(Worksheets.Count)).Name = sheetName
    End If

    Next i

    'Turn on Screen Updating
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    
End Sub

I get an error when i get to the last bit of code .Name =sheetName because it contains the '/' invalid character.