Variable Arrays

Is there a way to make some sort of array of variables?

I made a custom inventory, and I save each item in it's own player_persistant variable.

Now I want to check the nbt number tags of each item in the inventory, but there are 17 different slots, and I don't want to have to check each individual one manually.

Is there some way to do this with a loop?

If I could make an array, or list of variables, that would help a lot, or if there was some other way, that would be great.