Creating objects (data.frames) with names stored in character vector

Hello,

I'm fairly new to R.  I'm a chemist, not a programmer so please bear  
with me.

I have a large data.frame that I want to break down (subset) into  
smaller data.frames for analysis.  I would like to give the  
data.frames descriptive names which I have stored in a character  
vector.  My original thought was that I want the subsets to show up  
as individual objects, but haveing them stored in a list is fine  
(maybe better).

I can create a list of subsetted data.frames like this:

Lst = list(subset1 = (subset (blablabla)), subset2 =  
(subset(blabla)))

but I have to provide the component names (subset1, subset2) manually.

I would like to pull the component names from an existing character  
vector, but so far my attempts have failed.

Any advice is appreciated, even if the advice is "don't do that."

Thank you,

Kent