make an hashmap of pointers to the variables with the name of the variable as the key.
You can then simply look up the pointer by the name of the variable, dereference it, and you have your variable back.

You might investigate the std::map template, where you could do something like:

map<string, string> variableMap;

and then fill it in with commands like:

variableMap["CustomerName"] = "Chainsaw";

once you understand maps and iterators, the look isn't too bad.

>would like to keep additional coding and variable space to a minimal.
To do a lookup table using string keys properly, you're looking at either a hash table or a binary search tree. Those are the simplest data structures that give you good performance. If your goal is minimal extra work then the hash table is your best bet, likewise for variable space. Memory-wise you're looking at 60 string-value pairs at the very least if you want everything in high speed memory at run-time. If you don't care about ideal performance then an array of about 60 structures won't bog you down too much, even with a naive sequential search.

>Is there any way to use a string variabe as a variable name?
No, not without a lot of framework in C. In C++ you can use existing libraries to do what you would otherwise have to code manually (assuming no third party stuff).

>By the way, are C console programs difficult to migrate to C++?
It depends on the C program and the desired level of C++-correctness. For well written ISO C programs, only a few minor changes will be needed to compile as C++ (if any are needed at all). If you want proper C++ and not just C code compiled as C++ then it takes more work.