How can I load an object into a variable name that I specify from an R data file?

You could also try something like:

# Load the data, and store the name of the loaded object in x
x = load('data.Rsave')
# Get the object by its name
y = get(x)
# Remove the old object since you've stored it in y 
rm(x)

You can create a new environment, load the .rda file into that environment, and retrieve the object from there. However, this does impose some restrictions: either you know what the original name for your object is, or there is only one object saved in the file.

This function returns an object loaded from a supplied .rda file. If there is more than one object in the file, an arbitrary one is returned.

load_obj <- function(f)
{
    env <- new.env()
    nm <- load(f, env)[1]
    env[[nm]]
}

I use the following:

loadRData <- function(fileName){
#loads an RData file, and returns it
    load(fileName)
    get(ls()[ls() != "fileName"])
}
d <- loadRData("~/blah/ricardo.RData")

If you're just saving a single object, don't use an .Rdata file, use an .RDS file:

x <- 5
saveRDS(x, "x.rds")
y <- readRDS("x.rds")
all.equal(x, y)