Yes, a hash can accomplish this: In your file, you can leave off the $ signs, as they will be unnecessary. Then:

open FILE, "recorder.ini"||die "file open failed\n";
chomp(@lines=<FILE>);
foreach(@lines) {
  ($key,$value)=split(/=/,$_);
  $hash{$key}=$value;
}
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Now where you would have used $NAME, you can use $hash{'NAME'}. (If I were you, I'd lowercase the key values to make typing easier.)