Originally they were named with numerals, but that quickly became unwieldy once they got to "Type V demon"/"Type 6 demon"/"Sixth-category demon" and beyond. Although the Dante’s Inferno-inspired supplements by Judges Guild and Spellbook Games apparently expanded this scheme by adding Latin letters, such as a "Type 3B devil". Similar numerical expansions are apparently used in other OSR products.
In later editions of D&D the demons got gibberish names (apparently meant to be demon language) by species like balor, marilith, and glabrezu. This also quickly becomes unwieldy because these names don't mean anything in English. There are a bazillion demons and those names aren't memorable.
Many writers across many 3rd-party publishers opted to use simple descriptions of the demon’s obvious shtick, such as ice devil, fly demon, two-faced demon, jester demon, etc. Pathfinder 2e takes this approach: balor becomes "fire demon", glabrezu becomes "treachery demon," marilith becomes "pride demon," shemhazian becomes "mutilation demon," succubus becomes "lust demon," vrock becomes "wrath demon", etc.
I see nothing inherently wrong with all of these approaches. I think it makes sense for all demons to have numerical indexes, names in the demon tongue, and descriptive names in English.
I see nothing inherently wrong with all of these approaches. I think it makes sense for all demons to have numerical indexes, names in the demon tongue, and descriptive names in English.
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