Question: What is the right way of initializing a static map? Do we need a static function that will initialize it?

Answer: 
Just wanted to share a pure C++ 98 work around:

```
#include <map>

std::map<std::string, std::string> aka;

struct akaInit
{
    akaInit()
    {
        aka[ "George" ] = "John";
        aka[ "Joe" ] = "Al";
        aka[ "Phil" ] = "Sue";
        aka[ "Smitty" ] = "Yando";
    }
} AkaInit;

```
This is similar to `PierreBdR`, without copying the map.

```
#include <map>

using namespace std;

bool create_map(map<int,int> &m)
{
  m[1] = 2;
  m[3] = 4;
  m[5] = 6;
  return true;
}

static map<int,int> m;
static bool _dummy = create_map (m);

```