Creating a NumericVector with more than 20 elements leads to error messages. This is in agreement with this document (at the very bottom): http://statr.me/rcpp-note/api/Vec
Create the vector with the size you need then assign the values & names. This is an Rcpp "inline" function (easier for folks to try it out) but it'll work in your context:
library(Rcpp)
library(inline)
big_vec <- rcpp(body="
NumericVector run(26);
CharacterVector run_names(26);
# make up some data
for (int i=0; i<26; i++) { run[i] = i+1; };
# make up some names
for (int i=0; i<26; i++) { run_names[i] = std::string(1, (char)('A'+i)); };
run.names() = run_names;
return(run);
")
big_vec()
## A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
## 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26