Building a list from a list looks like a job for map. But unless order is really important, and it isn't just alphabetical order (using sort is easy enough), a list of pairs looks like something that could have its place in a hash. So, based on kennethk's answer (Edit: and similar AnomalousMonk's proposition): 

$current = 'a';
my %cds = map { $_ => $current++ } @cd_names;

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It shouldn't be much trouble to turn that into a array of arrays if needed :).

In reply to Re: Generate list from a to arbitrary letter by Eily
in thread [Solved] Generate list from a to arbitrary letter by three18ti

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