See [this question and answers for the difficulties in trying to access the name of a variable in python](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18425225/getting-the-name-of-a-variable-as-a-string). If you control how the variables are being assigned in the first place, then save them in a dict instead (`{'a':10,'b':5}`) as those play nice with pandas. If not, then weigh the time investment in implementing one of the related answers vs just retyping the entries for `col1`
– G. AndersonMay 02 '22 at 23:15