in reply to Array indices

There is a better way. your data is related. putting it in two arrays unrelates it. you want a more complex structure. id say an array of hashrefs would be best. If you really want the indice for this example declare a counter variable outside of the for loop below. though my guess is you just want the related data.
my @names = ( {first=>"john",last=>"brown"}, {first=>"jacob",last=>"black"}, {first=>"jingle",last=>"gray"}, {first=>"heimer",last=>"greene"}, {first=>"smitz",last=>"purple"} ); for my $name (@names){ print $name->{last} if $name->{first} eq 'heimer'; }