mkdir folder1 folder2 folder3
I tried redirecting a file with a list of folder names into mkdir with no success, so I ended up just copying and pasting my list into Terminal. You cannot use a list with returns; all the names need to be on one line, separated by spaces.
[kirkmc adds: While this is a pretty basic hint, it shows some interesting things that you can do from Terminal. First, you need to tweak your list of customers (or whatever) so all the names are on one line. Next, you need to worry about spaces: if you have names with spaces, the names need to be in quotes, such as "Henry David Thoreau"; otherwise, you'd get individual folders named Henry, David and Thoreau. You could also use underscores (Henry_David_Thoreau), or other characters as separators.
For example:
$ mkdir "Henry David Thoreau" Ralph_Waldo_Emerson Walt-Whitman
The above command makes a total of three new folders, the first separated by spaces, the second by underscores, and the third with a hyphen; the only constraints are the actual tweaking of your list. You may need to take a tab- or return-delimited list and replace the tab or returns, or manually add quotes, but you can use this to create any number of folders very quickly.]