It shouldn't matter to HTML::Template what your select's name is. For consistancy I often name my form names, tmpl names all the same as my database column names and I've never had a problem with it.

From your small snippet of code I can't really spot an error, it could be in your perl code itself. at any rate I'd suggest joining the HTML-Template-Users list (html-template-users@lists.sourceforge.net) and asking your question there. The author frequents the list and there are lots of other smart people (smarter than me) that would probably be able to tell you.