[jQuery] do I really have to use xml?

[snorkel]

I have an array of nodes which are being created in a for loop
 for n 1 to 30 etc etc which makes nodes like this in the html

 <li name="1"   id="hh_010_0160" >hh_010_0160  </li>
etc
etc
 <li name="30"  id="hh_010_0160" >hh_010_0160 </li>

so in other words each node has an array index in the name

and some javascript which has
items = parent.getElementsByTagName(li);
so far so good it all works fine
but, then i sort the item list and want to get the array index of the
sorted item, i.e the name
so I've tried
  for(p=0;p<N;p++){
          rank=parseInt((items[p].nodeName))
But as I guess everybody knows it just gives me back LI not the name
of the node i.e my array integer value
Is there a way to get the name in jquery or do I really have to use
xml??
thanks for any help