Returning anonymous type in C#

You can't.

You can only return object, or container of objects, e.g. IEnumerable<object>, IList<object>, etc.

You can return dynamic which will give you a runtime checked version of the anonymous type but only in .NET 4+

In C# 7 we can use tuples to accomplish this:

public List<(int SomeVariable, string AnotherVariable)> TheMethod(SomeParameter)
{
  using (MyDC TheDC = new MyDC())
  {
     var TheQueryFromDB = (....
                       select new { SomeVariable = ....,
                                    AnotherVariable = ....}
                       ).ToList();

      return TheQueryFromDB
                .Select(s => (
                     SomeVariable = s.SomeVariable, 
                     AnotherVariable = s.AnotherVariable))
                 .ToList();
  }
}

You might need to install System.ValueTuple nuget package though.

You cannot return anonymous types. Can you create a model that can be returned? Otherwise, you must use an object.

Here is an article written by Jon Skeet on the subject

Code from the article:

using System;

static class GrottyHacks
{
    internal static T Cast<T>(object target, T example)
    {
        return (T) target;
    }
}

class CheesecakeFactory
{
    static object CreateCheesecake()
    {
        return new { Fruit="Strawberry", Topping="Chocolate" };
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        object weaklyTyped = CreateCheesecake();
        var stronglyTyped = GrottyHacks.Cast(weaklyTyped,
            new { Fruit="", Topping="" });

        Console.WriteLine("Cheesecake: {0} ({1})",
            stronglyTyped.Fruit, stronglyTyped.Topping);            
    }
}

Or, here is another similar article

Or, as others are commenting, you could use dynamic