It is a name for the "number sign, or numeral" ( ), which also tries to avoid confusion with the sharp or "sustained" (98'' ) in musical notation. The origin of this word is not confirmed, but the legend attributes it to the supervisor Don McPherson of the American telephone company Bells Labs, who introduced in the phones with DTMF keyboard the buttons with an asterisk ( * ) and a numeral , but as users confused it with a sustained cut for the healthy and invented the name octothorpe , 'octo' ("eight") inspired by its 8 points and 'Thorpe' as a tribute to Olympic athlete Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe. Either way, this name didn't become as popular, and half a century later the word hash was added to the confusion.
