How to replace part of variable name in loop

I am trying to crate a code that does many simple calculations over and over again for different sets of data. My code would be on a much larger than shown, but a small example is:

DATA=xlsread('MotorData.xls',1,'A2:D50000');

for i=1:size(DATA,2)
    BackMtr1Avg=mean(DATA(:,i));
    BackMtr1Std=std(DATA(:,i));
    BackMtr1Max=max(DATA(:,i));
    BackMtr1Min=min(DATA(:,i));
end

I'd like to do these four calculations for each column in my matrix 'DATA'. However, I need to change the variable name for each column, so that for column 1 it is BackMtr1***, column 2 it is BackMtr2***, column 3 is FrontMtr1***, etc. I'm looking for a way to do this change in the variable name without explicitly writing out each variable. Something along the lines of:

DATA=xlsread('MotorData.xls',1,'A2:D50000');
names={'BackMtr1';'BackMtr2';'FrontMtr1';'FrontMtr2'};
for i=1:size(DATA,2)
    string=names(1,i);
    strcat(string,'Avg')=mean(DATA(:,i));
    strcat(string,'Std')=std(DATA(:,i));
    strcat(string,'Max')=max(DATA(:,i));
    strcat(string,'Min')=min(DATA(:,i));
end

So in the end of this example, I'd have 16 separate statistical variables that are all defined without needing to explicitly define and write the 16 lines of code (in my actual program, I'm defining about 400 variables, to this would be much more useful). Obviously I know that this example wouldn't work - I'm just curious if this is even possible. Any help on this subject would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

[Matt Fig]

In short, don't do it!

There are other, better ways!

[Jan]

@Jason: I recommend to trust this advice. We have seen several hundrets posts in the past concerning the problems arising from such approaches: A complicated method to create a pile of variables, which contain useful information in their names, demand for further complicated methods to access these varaibles again.

Use structs with the fields 'Avg', 'Std', ...