[mseebach]

In Danish, it's "snabel-a", ie "[elephant's] trunk-a". # was at a time when a popular youth radio show had an IRC channel called "havelåge" or "garden gate", but "firkant" (simply "square") was and remains in wide use in voice response systems. Neither symbol had as far as I know any mainstream use before this time.

# in internet-contexts has transitioned to "hashtag" (remains "firkant" in voice response), but as far as I know snabel-a is still in use (I just realised that I haven't participated in a Danish verbal transmission of an email address in quite a while).