Enum

An enum may give you additional benefits, if you want the features:

const enum FieldNamesEnum {
  FirstField = "Field One",
  SecondField = "Field Two"
};

let x: FieldNamesEnum;

x = FieldNamesEnum.FirstField;
x = FieldNamesEnum.SecondField;

// Error - not assignable to FieldNames
x = 'str';

// Cannot assign
FieldNamesEnum.FirstField = 'str';

Importantly, you can’t assign to the enum members and types are checked to the enum members, rather than string.

Additionally, because you have used a const enum in your example, the enum won’t exist at runtime and all the references will be substituted for the literal values (if you used a plain enum the enum would exist at runtime).

Object

Compare this to the object example:

const FieldNames = {
  FirstField: "Field One",
  SecondField: "Field Two"
};

let y: string;

y = FieldNames.FirstField;
y = FieldNames.SecondField;

// Oops it works
y = 'str';

// Oops it works

FieldNames.FirstField = 'str';

Union

If you don’t need the full enum, but want to limit the values, you can use a union of literal values:

type FieldNames = "Field One" | "Field Two";

let x: FieldNames;

x = "Field One";
x = "Field Two";

// Error - not allowed
x = "Field Three";