What you seem to be trying to achieve but using the completely wrong syntax for is variable variables. That would be achieved using....
$fieldarray = array('characterName','shortName','height','weight','hometown');
foreach ($fieldarray as $fieldlabel) {
if (isset($row[$fieldlabel])) {
${$fieldlabel} = $row[$fieldlabel];
}
}
However, I would never recommend such a method as variable variables are slow. use an array instead. Besides, if you are retreiving more than a single record your logic is still floored because you will only ever get the last record available.