I call it "positional expansion", as opposed to ** which I call "keyword expansion".
I call *args "star args" or "varargs" and **kwargs "keyword args".
I say "star-args" and Python people seem to know what i mean.
** is trickier - I think just "qargs" since it is usually used as **kw or **kwargs
For a colloquial name there is "splatting".
For arguments (list type) you use single * and for keyword arguments (dictionary type) you use double **.
Both * and ** is sometimes referred to as "splatting".
See for reference of this name being used: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47875892/14305096
I believe it's most commonly called the "splat operator." Unpacking arguments is what it does.
One can also call * a gather parameter (when used in function arguments definition) or a scatter operator (when used at function invocation).
As seen here: Think Python/Tuples/Variable-length argument tuples.
The Python Tutorial simply calls it 'the *-operator'. It performs unpacking of arbitrary argument lists.
Source: Stackoverflow.com