Replace category title with a number for false pagination

Hi, I have a category list, but instead of having

• category name
• category name
• category name
• category name

I need to have
1
2
3…
where those numbers are NOT the category ID, just a number sequence, a variable ie called $cat-order that has a $cat-order++

just a numbered list.
is that possible? where do I change that?
I tried everything at cat template and found nothing.