
Choosing names for your computers - s-phi-nl
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1178.html
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nreece
A nice naming scheme (for server names) I read about somewhere suggested
following the periodic table. Element names can be used as the server names
and corresponding element numbers as corresponding IP addresses (subnet
suffix) of the servers.

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AngryParsley
There are other advantages to this naming scheme. Element abbreviations can be
used as short DNS names. For example, both lithium and li could resolve to
192.168.1.3.

Also, groups of elements can correspond to types of computers. Halogens can be
embedded devices, noble gasses can be gaming machines, alkali metals can be
file servers, etc.

~~~
mojuba
I'd use radioactive elements for Windows servers.

Also, hydrogen - firewall/GW, oxygen - mail server, carbon - public web
server, iron - source repository.

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soult
While looking at the serverfault thread linked somewhere in this post, I found
the following site: <http://www.namingschemes.com/>

It's a whole wiki full of naming schemes. It actually included the one I am
using (Battlestar Galactica callsigns), which I though should have been pretty
unique.

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froo
BSG callsigns, cool - I've been naming my machines after 80's transformers for
years!

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joezydeco
I heard of one organization that used disasters. Titanic, Hindenburg,
Ishtar... the nice part is that you keep getting new ones all the time.

I'd probably avoid Eyjafjallajokull, though.

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abalashov
Especially since the technically correct spelling is Eyjafjallajökull. :-)

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avar
In IDN that's xn--eyjafjallajkull-jtb, quite the server name.

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tvon
My first naming scheme revolved around monkeys, I had spacemonkey, funkymonkey
and.. I forget the third. That one didn't scale well.

For a short while I used characters from children's books (mom is a librarian
who loves children's books), this included lafcadio, lorax and grinch.

Right now it's robots from Futurama. Bender, flexo (the Win XP dual-boot of
bender, which is OSX), clamps, roberto (the crazy, stabbing robot), calculon
and my dedicated server, robot-devil.

Not that anyone asked, but hey, naming schemes are fun!

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andrewvc
Hah, so I'm not the only one to go the Futurama robots route. My personal fave
is Boxy (Is he objecting or backing up? I can't tell!)

~~~
tvon
Good name for a Boxee box.

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groaner
Finally, a use for Google Sets: <http://labs.google.com/sets>

~~~
ax0n
I've never seen that before. When I was in college, I named all my machines
after songs by Orbital. This worked pretty well since they were, back then,
cranking out a new album every couple of years or so. I added chime, midnight,
and halcyon to Google Sets to see what it would come up with and every other
suggestion on its list was the name of an Orbital song. Nice.

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lief79
Only time I remember having interesting computer names out side of college,
the companies lawyers put a squash to it. Infectious diseases just has so much
creativity to it.

I suspect they were ok with "cholera", but someone in the legal department got
upset with "ebola". I think the rest had been disabled by that point, and I'm
sure they were already off the internal dns.

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calcnerd256
My naming convention is naming conventions. My server is named slogan, my
tablet is named color, my netbook is named protagonist, my car (a Nissan
Quest) is named Tribe, my ad-hoc wireless network's ssid is synonym, my
external drive is named planet, and my server's replacement will be named
category.

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harpastum
Previous article and lively conversation on this subject:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=834817>

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philwelch
Classic. I have a naming scheme for my personal laptops--female characters
from sci fi series. I've had an aluminum PowerBook named Kira, a black MacBook
named Dee, and an aluminum MacBook named Kara so far.

~~~
waterlesscloud
My current naming theme is Song Of Ice And Fire characters. The netbook I'm
writing this in is named Tyrion, for example.

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Osmose
My boss is the sysadmin for my school's CS department; there is an IT
department that every other department uses, but they're slow and useless.

For the longest time, their servers were named after ships, such as Bismark,
Arizona, Enterprise, etc, while all of our servers were named after things
that sink ships, such as Broadside, Salvo, Crash, Leak, etc.

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carbocation
Fittingly, we name our servers after universities. Ivy League colleges are
web-facing, the Pac-10 are database servers, and the Claremont colleges are
dev boxes. Ultimately no scheme will hold up, but at least we have a few
thousand pre-made names to use.

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ghshephard
I name our servers after the asset tag numbers. DNS can then be used to
provide an inventory of our data centers. It also ensures we have a
programatic and automatic way to name machines, and numbers are remarkably
memorable after a while.

~~~
js2
Any scheme based on a pool of names does not scale. If you have big plans, a
sequence is the way to go.

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soult
There are lots of pools you could use that offer a vast amount of names,
assuring that you never run out even if you have a very large number of hosts.
Good examples in my opinion are names of things existing in real life, e.g.
band names, names of famous (CS) people, ..., while fictional names
(characters from some book) tend to run out too soon.

You could even partition hostnames, e.g. all workstations in room 1 are named
after famous rock stars, all workstation in room 2 are named after famouse
rappers, etc.

~~~
bmelton
I get that there isn't a serious argument here, but how do you reconcile when
the guy using 'megadeth' moves to a different cubicle?

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cgranade
For my personal systems, I choose names of demons (since they run lots of
dæmons). I get a little thrill out of not knowing what to name something, and
taking it as an excuse to go look up cool names.

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callahad
I'm quite fond of using typefaces -- you can be surprisingly descriptive:

Arial (laptop), Futura (internet tablet), Minion (home server), Courier
(router), Perpetua (VPS), etc.

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spudlyo
_Don't use antagonistic or otherwise embarrassing names._

Oops. My work computer is _Spaz_ , my iPhone is _Dirty Sanchez_ and my laptop
is _Dingleberry_.

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mfr
At the risk of self-promotion, a while back I did a presentation on naming
schemes for network devices, which have slightly different requirements than
servers:

[http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog31/abstracts.php?pt=NjExJ...](http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog31/abstracts.php?pt=NjExJm5hbm9nMzE=&nm=nanog31)

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petercooper
A big(ish) hosting company I once worked for used Caribbean islands. This
rapidly turned out to be a mistake and it quickly turned into any islands,
then cities, then god knows what :-)

My current scheme is using major LA thoroughfares (Pico, Victory, Ventura,
etc) but as I'm unlikely to scale beyond two digits, I'm not worried ;-)

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s-phi-nl
Did you did consult the following list:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_the_Caribbea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_the_Caribbean)?

~~~
petercooper
Very cool! I suspect they did not exhaust _that_ list :-) Though "Barrel of
Beef" doesn't seem like server name material to me.

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pg
We used Tintin characters: tintin, haddock, calculus, snowy.

~~~
statictype
Going on a tangent: Did you read Tintin while living in America? Because from
what I've understood, those comics are almost unheard of there. Is that not
true?

~~~
pg
I don't know about the rest of America, but they were pretty well known in
Cambridge, where I first discovered them.

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ErrantX
I use random names from Firefly - there is actually a goodly number of you
think about it for a bit.

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nrr
I use names from various books, in no particular fashion. Most of my names are
from Tad Williams books, but I've been known to use the names of Anne
McCaffrey's dragons as well, with some names from Norse mythology tossed in
for good measure.

My current workstation is pfefirrit. In the past, I've had fizz, click,
karthwine, ninebirds, nuzzledark, nipslither, bast-imret, earnotch, and knet-
makri as servers. My old workstations were cloudleaper, bite-then-bark, pop,
hushpad, and tailchaser. My firewall was meerclar.

As far as laptops go, I've used munin, hugin, odin, krelli, skoggi, krauka,
nrefa-o, mnanth, and caylith.

Back when I did IT for a couple of schools, I used chemical compounds in a
certain fashion to reflect room numbers.

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wfarr
We use names of beers and liquors. Works well enough.

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patrickk
In college, I had a lecturer who named companies in an assignment after
characters in The Wire (Avon Barksdale etc). It's possible he downloaded this
from the internet though. It certainly made things a little more interesting.

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KC8ZKF
Bond women. Kissy, Pussy, Solitaire, Domino, Vesper, Honey, Goodnight...

~~~
groaner
Bonus points for when someone asks which computer you are using and you say,
"I'm on Pussy."

I worked at a place that gave female names to all the computers. It was a
little awkward.

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watmough
Mine are named after Star Trek characters.

Troi (MacBook), Picard (iMac), Locutus (Mini), Crusher (MBP).

At uni, most of the computers were named after distilleries. i.e. Livet,
Morangie, Grant, Islay etc.

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duck
I once used programming languages for a small lab. They were identical
machines and the weird thing was 'java' was the slowest and 'arc' always
needed to be rebooted.

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alanh
For my own devices, I just name them anything related to space exploration. I
make it memorable and appropriate. Launchpad was where I did all my creative
work. Pocket Rocket was a Mac Mini. My iPod was Cassini (comparatively small /
weak spacecraft); when I lost it, I posthumously renamed it Atlantis (after
the Shuttle).

Originally I named devices after computer science visionaries — the computer I
built, I named Kilby, after Jack Kilby.

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kordless
In the 90s, fruits. Coconut, kiwi, orange. Had a Cisco named passion. When
you'd ping it from the Solaris box (pineapple) it would say "passion is
alive".

Around 2000 with Grub I did bugs. Ant, roach, mosquito, brainbug (from
starship troopers).

2005 or so a buddy got started using Roman names for servers. Dido, Leptis,
Aeneas, Ulysses, Spartacus.

My home computers are super heros/villains. Superman, ironman, greenlantern,
jeangrey, magneto, thing, hulk.

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bmelton
I've always had (what I would guess are) odd schemes. My first naming scheme
was based around beat poets (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs), but currently, my
scheme is 'cool Jacks that I like', which includes Bristow, McCoy, Kerouac,
Kevorkian, Kirby, etc.

BSG callsigns sound awesome, and somebody else mentioned colors, but I think
scaling that gets confusing, especially if you're color blind, as I am.

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paulshort
My main home computer, a laptop, is named Workhorse. But after seeing some of
the creative naming techniques people in this thread have used, the next
machine(s) added to my home network will be named using Klingon swear words.

I quite like the idea of using the word 'petaQ' to name a computer, especially
if it happens to be a Windows machine.

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100k
Probably not very original, but I use titles of SF books I like that also
reflect on the machine (sometimes).

Here's some I've used:

\- tau-zero

\- subtleknife

\- Dark Light (iPhone)

\- Omega Device (iPod Nano - I like this one :)

\- skyroad

\- zodiac

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poutine
My most successful naming scheme was using the names of Cheeses. There's a
crapload of cheeses out there.

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JeanPierre
I think the idea is straightforward: Use short names you use rarely, and
preferably give all your computer a theme.

I'm currently using Greek Gods, but surely Roman Gods should be just as
efficient. Planets should work as well, if you include imaginary planets
(From, say, Star Wars)

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donw
Doctor Who characters for my home systems here; my black MacBook is called
Tardis, because it's bigger on the inside, and the Dell server was obviously
styled by Davos, so it's called Dalek.

Naming schemes help keep the fun in managing computers.

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Lazlo_Nibble
I usually pick a name based on some piece of music that's nearby the first
time I get asked to set one. Sleepwalk (Santo & Johnny), Skyscraper
(Underworld), Hinterland (William Orbit), Zoolookologie (Jean-Michel Jarre)...

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pcarmichael
I've gone the Lord of the Rings route before using locations: shire,
barrowdowns, moria, lothlorien, isengard, mordor, rivendell, etc. The only bad
thing was that only about one in ten people knew how to spell isengard.

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ableal
Amusing take:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/verity_stob_name_you...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/verity_stob_name_your_pc/)
\- Don't call me Ishmael - Choosing a name for your new PC

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thewileyone
Coruscant, Hoth, Yavin, Dagobah, Tatooine, Dantooine, and of course, Deathstar

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Keyframe
My workstation is named Casper, because it had a fried motherboard and I
thought it was dead. Other option was Lazarus. Notebook is Pegasus, because
it's powerful and can "fly around". Render nodes are RNn.

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wanderr
Our sysadmin insists on using numbers to name systems, in combination with an
abbreviation representing the OS. For example, RHL015 is our 15th server
running CentOS (Red Hat Linux). It's quite maddening!

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decavolt
Thundercats. I name all of my machines after the Thundercats.

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ryane
Roman emperors: augustus, tiberius, caligula, claudius, etc.

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a-j-h
I have in the past used characters from the Wheel of Time.

Currently using types of peppers in work.

Using characters or items from Neuromancer for personal stuff. My netbook is
onosendai.

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riobard
I'm following the Futura characters. My Unibody MacBook is called Bender
because it indeed has a shining metal ass (although different kind of metal)
:D

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jff
I just name them after whatever I feel like. Among them: alpha, hiro,
zoidberg, LOKI (VMS box), fafnir, glenda, p9, illiac, jerq, perq, and beer.

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d0m
Disney chose to name their computers like some planets; while the NASA chose
to name their computers like some Disney characters :p

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Supermighty
I used to name my computers after Cathedrals but there weren't enough that
sounded neat. So I switched to names of English cities.

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jballanc
My portable is always DeepThought, my desktop/workhorse machine is always
Earth, and my backup volume/server is always Magrathea

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blogimus
We used Babylon 5 characters on one network, but kept getting "duplicate name
exists on network" when we got to "Zathras"

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thwarted
I kept running out of names with various schemes, but right now all my machine
names are words that end in x.

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RodgerTheGreat
I go with colors. My main machines are Indigo and Violet, and I have a server
under my bed called Aubergine.

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rikthevik
Transformers names have worked well for me. FortressMaximus and OmegaSupreme
being some highlights.

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thestoicattack
All my computers are named after Star Wars planets. The recently acquired
MacBook Air is "naboo".

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ivenkys
Google sets and Greek mythological figures . For my personal list of 7
computers that's fine.

~~~
kmano8
The twelve classical olympians were always enough for me, too.

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thought_alarm
My computers and devices are named after popular females of the 1920s:

\- myrtle

\- mindy

\- mabel

\- ilene

\- irma

\- iris

\- patsy

\- floy

\- agnes

\- nellie

Nellie, of course, is my beautiful NeXT cube.

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binarymax
My names are always the planets, and 'SOL' is always the name of my PDC.

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systemtrigger
I want a computer like Tony Stark's in Iron Man, so named mine Jarvis.

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tdmackey
I use names of Star Wars planets and my wireless ssid is The Outer Rim

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8plot
I like naming systems after ex-coworkers, and especially ex-managers.

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davidw
This is, incidentally, the same Don Libes of Expect and Tcl fame.

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iamdave
I've got a pretty simple naming convention: interstates.

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dotBen
f@@k, s@@t, c@@t, crap, fart, bollocks, ar@e, etc all work great for computer
names for me.

~~~
dotBen
I knew I would risk karma on this one. but I'm not trolling, and these are the
names of my computers and servers. It has worked well for me for years.

