[K12OSN] OT: Bash help

[Peter Hartmann]

I'm trying to set up a large number of arrays with a for do loop.
It's not working, so to troubleshoot I'm simplifying it and only
seeing if can set up an array variable with a variable.

LIST=ffirst

#Declare array
declare -a ffirst
#Open file for reading to array
exec 10<ffirst   #  ffirst is also my filename
let count=0

while read LINE <&10; do

   $LIST[$count]=$LINE
    ((count++))
done
exec 10>&-

I's choking like this:

./create-csv3: line 62: ffirst[0]=Carmine: command not found
./create-csv3: line 62: ffirst[1]=: command not found
./create-csv3: line 62: ffirst[2]=: command not found
./create-csv3: line 62: ffirst[3]=Leonardo: command not found
./create-csv3: line 62: ffirst[4]=William: command not found
./create-csv3: line 62: ffirst[5]=: command not found


Is there a way to do what I want?

Thanks,
Peter