It seems that a
standard has arisen for giving the digits of larger bases (up to
hexadecimal) names in English. (Letters don't cut it, for purposes of
pronunciation.) I only heard of it recently, when someone started using it while saying some hexadecimal numbers.
Decimal Hex Doz Digit name
------- --- --- ----------
10 A * dek
11 B # el
12 C zen
13 D tris
14 E cat
15 F kink
These names come from various languages' names for the numbers - I surmise from Greek "
deka", English "
eleven", English "
dozen", Greek "
triskadeka", Spanish "
catorce", and Spanish "
quince".
A slight variation is used in dozenal, where 10 (12 in decimal) is called "do" (even though it's not a single digit) so that it will not be confused with the decimal "ten".