Thread: Array of Strings in a Class

I've been scouring the internet all morning looking for a solution to this problem, but nothing ever fits what I need. I'm creating a class which needs access to a list of names. I'm having a lot of trouble creating and then accessing this list/array/vector of names. The list is approximately 3005 names long (I copy/paste it in), so I can't use vector.push_back(). I tried using constructors, but couldn't get that to work. Here's a shortened (and simplified) sample of my code:

Code:

class name:
{
    std::string first_name[];
public:
    name();
    static std::string get_first()
    {
        return first_name[0];
    }
};

name::name(void)
{
    first_name[] = {"Aaliyah", "Aaron", "Abagail", "Abbey", "Abbie"...}
}

With code identical to that, I get errors:
invalid use of member 'name::first_name' in static member function
expected primary-expression before ']/{' token

Can anyone help me? Is there an easier way to do this?

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm new to C++. I've been programming in C for a long time, but this project necessitates C++ for class inheritance.

It is possible to create an array, but it just isn't possible to initialize it (unless it's static).
What you need to do is create an array with a fixed size (or std::vector) and then assign your data to the array instead of initializing it.
(This should be fixed in C++0x, I believe. But we're not there yet.)

Why not put all the names in a file and have your program read each name into a vector of strings?