The many pronunciations of "*"
Language Log 2015-12-22
I've heard people pronounce this symbol as though it were spelled "asteriks" or "asterix" (and some folks even write it the latter way). It gets really tricky when those who do so try to say it in the plural. And even those who pronounce "asterisk" the way it is spelled seem to have to make a special effort to render the final "s" of the plural audible when they say it.
There was a good discussion of this metathesis on English Language & Usage Stack Exchange four years ago.
Computer scientists (e.g., in INTERCAL) and mathematicians often pronounce it as "star", or, more informally, "splat".
Here's a pronunciation note from Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010:
pron: While the final syllable of asterisk is usu. pronounced (-rɪsk) with the (s) preceding the (k), a metathesized pronunciation of the word, in which the (s) and (k) change places to produce (ˈæs tə rɪks) is also heard. This pronunciation is sometimes falsely analyzed as a plural, with a corresponding singular (ˈæs tə rɪk) Both (ˈæs tə rɪks) and (ˈæs tə rɪk) although occasionally heard among educated speakers, are considered nonstandard pronunciations.
By the way, the Chinese for "asterisk" is xīnghào 星号 ("star symbol"), in Japanese it is asutarisuku アスタリスク, and in Korean it is byeolpyo 별표 ("star mark"). The Hindi word for asterisk is taaraka तारक, but, according to this online dictionary, that also means "star; aster; Savior; liberator; protector; Deliverer; planet".
Just before posting, I saw on this forum that "asterisk" is also pronounced by some people as "asterik" (metathesis plus elision), also mentioned in the pronunciation note quoted above, although I don't think that I personally have ever heard it pronounced that way.