Use globals() (disclaimer: this is a bad practice, but is the most straightforward answer to your question, please use other data structure as in the accepted answer).

You can actually assign variables to global scope dynamically, for instance, if you want 10 variables that can be accessed on a global scope i_1, i_2 ... i_10:

for i in range(10):
    globals()['i_{}'.format(i)] = 'a'

This will assign 'a' to all of these 10 variables, of course you can change the value dynamically as well. All of these variables can be accessed now like other globally declared variable:

>>> i_5
'a'

If you don't want to use any object, you can still use setattr() inside your current module:

import sys
current_module = module = sys.modules[__name__]  # i.e the "file" where your code is written
setattr(current_module, 'variable_name', 15)  # 15 is the value you assign to the var
print(variable_name)  # >>> 15, created from a string

# Python 3.8.2 (default, Feb 26 2020, 02:56:10)

Variable variables in Python

"""
<?php
$a = 'hello';
$e = 'wow'
?>
<?php
$$a = 'world';
?>
<?php
echo "$a ${$a}\n";
echo "$a ${$a[1]}\n";
?>
<?php
echo "$a $hello";
?>
"""

a = 'hello'  #<?php $a = 'hello'; ?>
e = 'wow'   #<?php $e = 'wow'; ?>
vars()[a] = 'world' #<?php $$a = 'world'; ?>
print(a, vars()[a]) #<?php echo "$a ${$a}\n"; ?>
print(a, vars()[vars()['a'][1]]) #<?php echo "$a ${$a[1]}\n"; ?>
print(a, hello) #<?php echo "$a $hello"; ?>

Output:

hello world
hello wow
hello world

Using globals(), locals(), or vars() will produce the same results

# Python 3.8.2 (default, Feb 26 2020, 02:56:10)

#<?php $a = 'hello'; ?>
#<?php $e = 'wow'; ?>
#<?php $$a = 'world'; ?>
#<?php echo "$a ${$a}\n"; ?>
#<?php echo "$a ${$a[1]}\n"; ?>
#<?php echo "$a $hello"; ?>

print('locals():\n')
a = 'hello'
e = 'wow'
locals()[a] = 'world'
print(a, locals()[a])
print(a, locals()[locals()['a'][1]])
print(a, hello)

print('\n\nglobals():\n')
a = 'hello'
e = 'wow'
globals()[a] = 'world'
print(a, globals()[a])
print(a, globals()[globals()['a'][1]])
print(a, hello)

Output:

locals():

hello world
hello wow
hello world


globals():

hello world
hello wow
hello world

Bonus (creating variables from strings)

# Python 2.7.16 (default, Jul 13 2019, 16:01:51)
# [GCC 8.3.0] on linux2

Creating variables and unpacking tuple:

g = globals()
listB = []
for i in range(10):
    g["num%s" % i] = i ** 10
    listB.append("num{0}".format(i))

def printNum():
    print "Printing num0 to num9:"
    for i in range(10):
        print "num%s = " % i, 
        print g["num%s" % i]

printNum()

listA = []
for i in range(10):
    listA.append(i)

listA = tuple(listA)
print listA, '"Tuple to unpack"'

listB = str(str(listB).strip("[]").replace("'", "") + " = listA")

print listB

exec listB

printNum()

Output:

Printing num0 to num9:
num0 =  0
num1 =  1
num2 =  1024
num3 =  59049
num4 =  1048576
num5 =  9765625
num6 =  60466176
num7 =  282475249
num8 =  1073741824
num9 =  3486784401
(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) "Tuple to unpack"
num0, num1, num2, num3, num4, num5, num6, num7, num8, num9 = listA
Printing num0 to num9:
num0 =  0
num1 =  1
num2 =  2
num3 =  3
num4 =  4
num5 =  5
num6 =  6
num7 =  7
num8 =  8
num9 =  9

I have tried both in python 3.7.3, you can use either globals() or vars()

>>> food #Error
>>> milkshake #Error
>>> food="bread"
>>> drink="milkshake"
>>> globals()[food] = "strawberry flavor"
>>> vars()[drink] = "chocolate flavor"
>>> bread
'strawberry flavor'
>>> milkshake
'chocolate flavor'
>>> globals()[drink]
'chocolate flavor'
>>> vars()[food]
'strawberry flavor'

Reference:
https://www.daniweb.com/programming/software-development/threads/111526/setting-a-string-as-a-variable-name#post548936

It should be extremely risky... but you can use exec():

a = 'b=5'
exec(a)
c = b*2
print (c)

Result: 10

The setattr() method sets the value of the specified attribute of the specified object.

Syntax goes like this –

setattr(object, name, value)
Example –

setattr(self,id,123)

which is equivalent to self.id = 123

As you might have observed, setattr() expects an object to be passed along with the value to generate/modify a new attribute.

We can use setattr() with a workaround to be able to use within modules. Here’ how –

import sys
x = "pikachu"
value = 46
thismodule = sys.modules[__name__]
setattr(thismodule, x, value)
print(pikachu)