Can someone explain some simple python concepts to me?
<p>I've been working through "Learn Python the Hard Way" and so far it's going pretty well, but I have a couple of questions:</p>

<pre><code>the_count = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
fruits = ['apples', 'oranges', 'pears', 'apricots']
change = [1, 'pennies', 2, 'dimes', 3, 'quarters']

# this first kind of for-loop goes through a list
for number in the_count:
    print "This is count %d" % number

# same as above
for fruit in fruits:
    print "A fruit of type: %s" % fruit

# also we can go through mixed lists too
# notice we have to use %r since we don't know what's in it
for i in change:
    print "I got %r" % i
</code></pre>

<p>In these for loops, respectively, does it matter what the words "number", "fruit" and "i" are? It feels like everything in python needs to be defined but we never really "defined" number if that makes sense. I'm not exactly sure how to word this question correctly =/</p>
