does anyone know a way to achieve/emulate this behavior

Perl's sprintf can refer to arguments by number, but not by name. 

>perl -le"print sprintf '%2$s %1$s', qw( a b )"
b a

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Double-quoted strings interpolate, so all you need 

$hello = "Hello $name";

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If you're asking for the format to be variable, then you're asking for a templating system. There are many of those. Here's a fair approximation of the syntax you requested: 

use String::Interpolate qw( );

sub format {
   my ($pat, $args) = @_;
   my $t = String::Interpolate->new($args);
   $t->($pat);
   return "$t";
}

my $hello = format('Hello $name', { name => 'World' });

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Update: Added code
Update: haoess found Text::Sprintf::Named

In reply to Re: python like named placeholders sprintf ? by ikegami
in thread python like named placeholders sprintf ? by 2xlp

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