So the other day I was talking to a friend (he's a native speaker by the way). We were talking about a certain subject when I said "How do you call that Gerry?", How do you say when someone is doing this or that and etc…" And every time I'd use "How" he would correct me and say it's "What" not "How", "It's what do you say, what do you call". Why was I wrong? I think many people don't know this.
Learn English – “What do you call vs how do you call”
word-usage
Best Answer
When asking how to refer to something or someone in English, the most conventional form is to ask
Call in the sense of identifying someone or something by a name or term is a complex transitive verb, in that it requires both a direct object and an object complement to communicate the meaning. The someone or something being identified is the direct object, and the name or term is the object complement. When asking a question with call, you are asking what the name or term is.
There is an entire genre of punny jokes based on this pattern.
If asking about phrasing for translation (whether to another language or to specialized terminology), you could instead ask
Here, you are not asking for a term or name, but for a manner, thus the interrogative is how rather than what.
I think these two, and perhaps others, get conflated among some learners. Also, how do you call would be the literal translation of the same question in various other languages, notably Romance languages, e.g. ¿Cómo se llama esto? Like saying touristic, however, it is a distinct marker of an ESL/EFL speaker.
Another form you may come across is how to say X, something I have used myself in forum thread titles, for example. I would not actually say this, or use it in most writing, even informal writing. In a title, however, it would be understood to stand for could someone instruct me how to say X or I would like to know how to say X.