How about using a dictionary instead of variables, to do something like the following:
images = Dict{AbstractString, Image}() # dictionary associating an
Image object to a string
image["flower"] = imread("flower.png") # made up function name
Accessing the dictionary won't significantly slow the access to the image
data stored in memory, and you can access the images by their reference
string, which can depend on input data (e.g. a list of files).
