otherwise rntz's function, in the post, already returns a table:

  (def filltbl (tbl keys vals)
      (or= tbl (table))
      (map (fn (k v) (= tbl.k v)) keys vals)
      tbl)

    (def filltbl (tbl keys vals)
      (fill-table (or tbl (table)) (mappend list keys vals))))

As for "creating a named table", er:

    (= foo (table)) ; I'm unclear on what's difficult about creating a table.

I rather doubt that's the issue, as it's easy to do with a macro.

  arc> (mac filltbl (tbl keys vals)
         `(= ,tbl (fill-table (table) (mappend list ,keys ,vals))))
  #3(tagged mac #<procedure: filltbl>)
  arc> (filltbl blah '(a b c) '(1 2 3))
  #hash((c . 3) (a . 1) (b . 2))
  arc> blah
  #hash((c . 3) (a . 1) (b . 2))

   "Am I missing anything here?"

  (mappend list keys vals)