Variables in database content

Hi there. I have what I suspect is an easy one, but was unable to find something similar in the archives (it's a tough one to search for...). Basically I have a table with a text block column. The actual content that lives in column contains php variables that I want to be able to use when I pull the text out of the database. Let me give you an example: Content: "Hi there. My name is $name. This is a bunch of text that $othername is telling me to populate with some data. Hopefully you will be able to help $othername and I get this to work. Thanks!" Now, in my script I want to be able to pull names out of another table, initialize the $name and $othername variables, then pull out the content above, parse the "names" variables and display it in the browser. My problem is the variables don't get parsed. I've tried a few obvious things, like storing the text in a variable, using print or echo, and so-on, even processing it with the various text-to-html functions hoping that it would process the variables, but it seems like it's treating the text as a literal and not actually parsing the variables. I suspect it has something to do with either the order, the method of output, or some pre-processing that I'm missing, but after a few hours I simply can't get it. Thanks for any advice! -b