You must be a functional programmer :) My specific example was Python-related; but yes, if I'm using a functional language (or comprehensions in Python) I'm much more inclined to just use i/j/k/x as the counter. But for loops in Python don't return anything of course except in `break` cases.

Or, if you want to be sure that a search/replace of a name won't go awry, you could use names such as customerIdx, nodeIdx, accountIdx. It also helps keep things clear in the few cases where you find yourself with nested iterations (so that you don't accidentally call customers[j] when it should have been customers[i]).

If I've got an iterable of Foo object instances, I'll call it "foos". When I iterate, I'll write "for foo in foos" without exception. Calling it i, j or k is fine, too, but I try to be as obvious as possible, because I believe that is a virtue.

I no longer use i as a counter because a few times in my career I've mistaken i for 1 or l.