Now I have done a fair amount of searching on this, however, I am not even sure if they have a name for what I am attempting to do... so any help in direction would be greatly appreciated, even if you simply provide the search words that might yield some actual results.

What I am trying to do is regarding the Win32 API (not using MFC), involving the message handling procedure and the UINT message parameter for the call. I am wondering if there was a way to convert the definition (for example) of WM_CREATE in to an actual string that I could change its letters, then once again use the newly created string to produce another definition's value?

Here's an example of what I am meaning:
Code:
LRESULT CALLBACK WinProc(HWND hwnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) {
           Convert <message> to character string;
           Update string as appropriate;
           Convert string to (UINT);
           Use its value for appropriate purposes;
}
My problem is what is available for converting a UINT value to a string (say "WM_CREATE") that I could edit and then change back to a UINT for other purposes (I am attempting to re-map these definitions to correspond with values more appropriate to array positions that would allow my program to use appropriate processing methods depending on what message is coming in). Is this even a possibility other then creating a list to which can be referenced each time?