My first networked computer, on an AppleTalk network was called "()/)/)()"

It was an Apple Macintosh IIci.

It had that name for less than five minutes. That's how long it took the network manager to find me and demand that I rename it to something that didn't appear at the top of the Chooser, since that's where the ADMIN NetWare server should be.

He suggested "ob1", and that's what it has been and continues to be for the past 32 years. My laptop became ob2.

Servers under my custody are called short words, generally four characters or less unless they're disposable and they don't get a name beyond what the installation process creates.

Edit: Oops, one too many slashes. Fixed.

My Raspberry Pi is named 'raspberrypi'. I'm very creative.

Nice try, NSA.

My stuff is named after planets / ships in Star wars.

Server is coruscant

Desktop is malastare

Laptop is anaxes

Portable hard drives are ships

My router is called Jupiter, everything connected to it is named after a moon. Callisto, Ganymede, Thelxinoe, Kallichore are what I'm currently using.

My Proxmox server is called ARCADE and each VM is named after a game. Currently we have:

• SpyHunter (PiHole and WireGuard VPN)
• Pacman (Ubuntu Server w/ Dashy, Syncthing, Portainer, and NextCloud inside Docker)
• MsPacMan (Ubuntu server for failover purposes. Still under construction)
• CrazyTaxi (Windows Desktop)
• MissleCommand (Linux Desktop)
• MonkeyIsland (qBitTorrent)

This has big “lol tell me your mother’s maiden name and your first pet and I’ll tel you what Harry Potter house you belong to!” Energy.

One place I worked we had a rule - do not name a server for any group using it. It seems the groups become territorial when you try to add a different group to "their" server.

I'm a Sysadmin, so my names are purely functional:

host-pmx-01 through 03, my 3 node Proxmox cluster

vm-[SERVICE], optional 01-03 if needed

ct-[SERVICE], for LXC containers

It makes it easy to reference things via DNS for service discovery.

• My self-hosted docker server is called Ark.
• My NAS is called NAS.
• The two remote servers are simply called the name of the country they reside in.
• The OPNsense router is called, wait for it, Router.
• The TV client is called TV.

It’s not very colourful :)

web01, web02, ... db01, db02, ... api01, api02, ...

You get the idea.

Lastname-Server

I know, I'm boring. But at least my laptop and desktop have cool names:

Firstname-Laptop

Firstname-Desktop

Nice try fed, won't get my hostname that easily

I use names of known computers or androids in fiction. My main computer is always Ralf (the computer built by Richie Adler in Whiz Kids), and my main phone is Lal (Data's daughter). My girlfriend uses other franchises (GLaDOS, Wheatley, Marvin).

My home assistant is on an old laptop, so obviously it's names HAL 9000.

I named my PiHole holypi

My first server was called xenon because I misread Xeon for Xenon but I decided to stick with it. My new server is called argon. For beefy servers I will now go with noble gases. Now that I think about it maybe I will use other elements in the future. Bismut sounds cool.

I have only one cloud VM and called it firstborn. 🤷

All my PCs get names I like Aveline, Elisabeth, Amanda, Amelie, Astrid, Eve...

I have yet to decide on a naming scheme for mobile phones.

Networking hardware gets descriptive names for their location and purpose.

vault101 was retired a few years ago and migrated to vault111

fedora@server

Proxmox Machine: Vimes
LinuxVM (Web and Appserver): Carrot
WinServer: Angua
NAS: Colon
OPNSense Router: Pessimal

I use names off the list of 22 fallen angels from the Book of Enoch.

It's a really interesting piece of hebrew apocrypha that details the circumstances leading to the flood. Feels much more high fantasy/pagan myth than the modern bible/torah.

My only server is named domino server because just a small change and everything on it will break. Yes, it is that unstable.

I used to just name it after the os running on it, but I've now switched to periodic elements. But to not be too predictable, I randomly choose one, e.g. osmium, then helium, then argon etc

No phantasy involved here.

Just my initials & "server" & a number.

Or, if the device isn't exactly a server, it can also be my initials & "router" & a number, or "bridge" etc.

As a huge fan of Star Wars content from before Disney got involved and poisoned it (notable exceptions of Rogue One, Andor, some of the animated shows, etc.), I utilize warship names from the Expanded Universe (now called "Legends") - what I like to call True Star Wars.

My main server is Chimaera. My backup server that also performs as an NVR is Lusankya. My separate mostly-NAS server away from my server rack is Admonitor.

I have sci-fi themed names (not all Star Wars - two other franchises represented here, virtual kudos to those who can identify) for the storage pools too (using TrueNAS SCALE on all three servers):

• Chimaera (Main Server)
  • Star-Forge (Apps/VM Pool)
  • Holocron (Data Pool)
• Lusankya (Backup + NVR Server)
  • Shadow-Broker (Apps Pool)
  • Resurrection (Backup Pool)
  • Spynet (NVR Pool)
• Admonitor (NAS Server)
  • Mount-Tantiss (Apps Pool)
  • Datacron (Data Pool)

My tangible servers and clients have people's names

My system components VMs have mythology names.

My non prod VMs have identifiable names like routeros, debiangui etc.

Fun stuff are my smart vacuums, I give them old women names from different countries. My very first one was Consuela, thinking of Family Guy.

I had them once named after things ( mostly Ships) from Jules Verne Books: Nautilus, Albatross, Formentera, Duncan, Dobryna, Hansa.

I used to have an old laptop stuck in a corner just running Transmission. I called that Seed because that was its sole purpose. Its replacement is fully automated *arr and media server, making it both seed and vault, so I had to call it Spitsbergen (reference)

DomainCode-SiteCode-Function##

ACME-USCA-WEB01 ACME-GERM-DC02

I worked for a company where the previous IT dorks named the servers after startrek ships. It's cute at home. Had to rename everything and readdress the whole organization.

I don't have many now, just minstrel (it plays music) but previously they've always just be sounds. Rawr, groan, whimper, bark, moan, growl etc.

Except minstrel (it plays music) :p

Weatherwax, Ogg, Nitt, Aching, Warbeck, Hamstring and few others

esmeralda

sadly i only have one server for now

I got with Ancient Egyptian Deities for everything. (See: my username).

Not so much servers as removable media. Three letter creature names: ape, bat, cat, dog, elk, fox, gnu, hen, imp, jay, kit, lee (fish), mus, nan (from Inuit folklore), owl, pug, qua, rat, sas (from Slavic folklore) and so on (I need to find my printed list beyond here)

Server1, server2 and server 3

I'll let myself out

I call my server "the server", "the shitbox", or "the 36TB", my pc "the PC", and my surface... "the surface". Creative, I know.

Moxy does some Proxy

Cluster of the fuck

Boxxy

F8U12

Currently s1 and t6. I'm not a fun person.

RPI4

Shuttle

Transporter

Orbiter

Years ago, I was in a University library and they had named all the printers after characters from the first three Star Wars movies.

I liked the idea of having a theme, so I use shark names. White, Blacktip, Mako, Hammerhead, etc etc.

Butts. It hosts web applications. The public ones are on the domain "InButts.LOL" where the subdomain is more or less the application name.

My servers/desktops are named after celestial bodies:

• Neptune
• Saturn
• Ceres
• Pluto

My mobile devices are named after space ships from sci-fi shows and the like:

• Rocinante
• Donnager
• Normandy

When I was growing up, my dad had some sort of email server or ftp server or something for the university he taught at. I have childhood memories of trying in odin@[university].edu. My first fileserver at home was just called The Vault, but when I put together a dedicated VM server, it became Odin. The long term VMs that I host on there are named after some of the lesser Nordic gods. I also have a Pi running NginX for reverse proxy passing, so after the latest season finale of Loki, that seemed like an appropriate name for that device.

My server is called Mars, and the two clients I have are Phobos and Deimos (the moons of Mars). I though that's a good fit.

remnant, partially because it's a frankestein of second hand from wallapop and dusted pieces from my old computers, partially as a weeb reference to the world of RWBY lol

Oh dang. How fun. I never even considered thematically making my machines! Mine are super mundane.

• machine - main server
• osmc - Kodi media box for tv
• kmac - old iMac running kde neon
• tunnelpi - raspberry pi 4 wireguard tunnel access point
• mini- Mac mini my wife uses for day to day use.

Now I’m going to have to find a theme and start renaming machines! I might go with Magic the Gathering as my theme.

Edit: formatting, and added MtG as potential theme

Edit 2: fixed stupid autocorrect error (theatrically to thematically)

I'm a BJCP certified beer judge, so I am using beer styles for my server names. Pilsner is my main server, my gaming rig is Stout, the Digital Ocean droplet is Marzen, and the kids' computer was Rootbeer.

Ant, Beetle, Caterpillar, Dragonfly

The devices usually get some descriptor of what they look like...

For example I have:

• Flatboard - an old core2duo era Xeon bare tower server board I got on Craigslist for $20 that lives on a custom backplate and no case (thus, is flat)
• OrangeBox - an Orange Pi 5 in a aptly-colored orange case I custom modeled and 3d printed for it
• DumbBrick - my retired gaming PC built from a t30 dell tower server that is basically a nondescript black brick

Mine are all named after dairy products.

I have whey as the main docker host and first mon, milk as my main x86 osd, leben-{1,2} as more (arm64) osds, kumis-{1,2,3} as more (arm64) mons, kefir and ghee are old x86 mons (maybe Ill repurpose them as docker hosts someday. I have lassi-{1,2} as rpi 3b+ but they arent in use at the moment because I dont need them yet. Ive got pytia as my spine, and yoghurt as my edge, leaf is l2 so no hostname.

My main windows gaming pc is butter, the wifes pc is something similar but its not turned on and I cbf checking router logs.

monokuma - my PC
monomi - my Android phone
monokid - my laptop
monosuke - my PostmarketOS phone
junko - main VPS
mukuro - main local server
hifumi - Jellyfin/*arr server

etc.

sol

terra

mars

venus

hubble

nibiru

voyager

groundcontrol (router)

deepspacenetwork1 and 2 (wifi access points)

I don't name my machines anything special, but I've started naming my internal hard drives/samba shares after planets, and external drives after moons.

Since I'm kinda fan of Terry Pratchett, I naturally have HEX at home.

Devices at home are named after Autobots and remote devices are named after Deceptions.

I use Futurama-based names. It started with my wifi network, which I named Zoidberg, because why not. The NAS is Infosphere, the media server is Hypnotoad, etc.

Pipi caca

nuc because it is a nuc and vps because it is a vps.

My SYNOLOGY NAS that's just shy of being used for too much stuff (96% CPU means I've got 4% left babyyyy) is, was, and will forever be: Senpai.

That way people (my wife and parents) notice it in the network list.

Chevy - Main server, rarely goes down unless I missed something on Ford

Ford - Test bed for Chevy. Questionable shit happens here.

UFO - primary desktop, most of the stuff happens here. Old Alienware case with new insides.

Sat - dreaming laptop, used for streaming from UFO.

Tron - VPN

Edit: Forgot my Wi-Fi router Colson, it dies often due to aging hardware.

Mine are named after fictional robots, computer programs, or AI. It started with my wifi being GLaDOS for 5 GHz and Wheatley for 2.4 GHz. I thought it was funny that everyone could immediately tell that Wheatley was the slower one. Over time, I continued the trend. My gaming PCs are named after characters from the Mega Man X series (desktop is Zero, laptop is X, steam deck is Sigma). My macs are named EVE and WALL-E. My server is named Sibyl System (from Psycho Pass).

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_planets

Naming Schemes

i use...colors...

the servers in my and my friends' network are called Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Heracles, and hp_elitedesk (don't ask about those last two

I do come up with fancy names for my laptops though, usually some combination of the model of the laptop and the OS it's running. Void Linux + Thinkpad = "voidpad" was pretty straightforward, but when my next machine was an Alienware running Arch I was a bit stuck. After a bit of thought I remembered that one episode of Star Trek with the Guardian of Forever and named it "guardianoffornow"

Basically all mine are from this list (or similar) Star Wars planet list

Mine are all anime characters. Currently I have:

• Mizuho (Onegai Teacher)
• Misaki (To Aru Kagaku no Railgun)
• Washu (Tenchi Muyo)
• Siesta (Zero no Tsukaima)
• Derfflinger (Zero no Tsukaima)

Two metal gear references: Arsenal gear and Outer Heaven.

And then the container ship company that blocked the canal, Evergreen

All having references to be able to hold many containers/weapons

Swedish city names, but only the ones with pure english characters to avoid hassel 😅

Kiruna

Halmstad

Lund

Etc...

Delta, Epsilon, Beta, rpi01, rpi02...

Travolta, Stallone, Dr.Jacoby, BlackMamba

hugin, munin (ML compute, storage) NAS-T sidebox-1 to 4

yep wild mix

My proxmox server is named Atlas. It hosts a Truenas VM called truenas, a ubuntu server lts vm called Poseidon for docker container hosting a homeassistant VM called homeassistant and a second VM for docker containers called Neptune where I want to gradually move and reorganize my services as required.

I also have a raspberry pi as a general testserver called eileithya and a Synology Nas named Hestia

Birds. Servers are big, strong, imposing birds. Mobile devices are small and flitting birds. Things in between are birds in between. I've put some thematic value on some of the bird names (a showy bird for media, etc.).

At home my systems use Star Wars planet names like Naboo, Coruscant, etc.

At work we use Game of Thrones characters (and we've somehow exhausted that list...)

Anonymous-Proxy

DataOfDoom

I just kinda vaguely name them after what they do and how big they are:

smol: my tiny little 2 bay Synology NAS that I'm no longer using
medium: my R620 with 4x 18TB drives that is my current NAS (medium, because it's larger than my previous NAS). Is also a k3s worker and provides NFS PVCs.
big: my old full-tower gaming rig that's a k3s worker and runs my Home Assistant VM
molecule: my current mini-ITX gaming rig and primary computer, also serves as the k3s master node and runs a lot of my home automation stuff. I think I picked molecule because it's REALLY tiny (it's in a Dan Cases A4v2, I think?) and it has a bunch of small stuff running on it (containers and pods)
monolith: my old T440p laptop. It's a large, black, featureless slab that doesn't do much
slab: my new Framework 13 laptop. I just kinda looked at it and said, "that's a nice slab of metal"

All of the above running Linux. I tinkered with Ubuntu for the NAS (because I heard Ubuntu was good at ZFS), but I still absolutely hate Ubuntu, so it's all Arch Linux.

My Unraid NAS and media server is called Madmartigan. The Proxmox server running Home Assistant, second Pihole instance and my bookmark manager and such is called Willow. My raspberry pi that I use for testing and such is called Brownie.

I don't name my servers anything special, but I do name my various Zigbee sensors in Home Assistant after Egyptian gods. Atum-Ra, Tefnut, Shu, etc. I've avoided the ones that also coincide with Stargate gods, as I thought that would be too exciting for me.

• Phone: yoda
• Desktop: bb8
• Firewall: c3po
• Switch: macewindu
• NASes:
  • anakin
  • r2d2
• Wireless APs:
  • biggs
  • garven
  • poe
  • typho
  • thane
  • wedge (virtual controller)
• Proxmox nodes:
  • chewy
  • hansolo
  • obiwan
• Raspberry PIs:
  • bobafett
  • lando
  • jangofett
  • quigon
  • rey
  • finn

The gist of rfc1178 is

• don't name them incomprehensible shit
• don't name them indistinguishable shit
• don't name them unpronounceable shit
• don't name them after their ephemeral purpose (less an issue now since it's one service per cattle member)

I worked at a shop where it was all ussfllb02 (a Linux load balancer in San Fran) and ukloesto12 (an emc array in London) and that's how they went all over the globe for like 15 DCs.

But then it got hard to keep the numbers straight, and we'd patch boxb10 instead of 01 or something, and the very real issue where humans can't keep abstract glyphs in their head for too long became a problem.

I'll do RedTruck and GreenBoat every time.

• Kubernetes Cluster
  • pi-left
  • pi-right
  • pi-centre
• Other Servers
  • pi-katamari (file server & database)
  • pi-athens (DHCP, DNS, pi-hole)
  • Alexandria (Synology)
• Desktops
  • Berlin
• Laptops
  • London
  • Brighton
  • Brussels
  • Cambridge
  • Toronto
• Phones
  • Laconia
  • Vulcan
  • Bajor

All my machines are named on some variation of David Bowie albums. Outside - my laptop, Blackstar - server 1, Stardust - server 2, etc.

All my machines are named after Autobots.

My first server was a used Dell r420, so I named it Pyrocumulus, after clouds that form over fires or volcanoes

Firebox to run my Firefox. Other servers I've dedicated to hosting that I don't interact regularly with I have been less creative with, usually my username and something to do with the server.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

15 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.

[Thread #724 for this sub, first seen 29th Apr 2024, 12:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

I use Roman deities. My recent Beelink purchase received the name Mellona. I thought it was fitting. Others have no relevance, just random, like Pluto, Juno, Jupiter, Neptune... double fun for them being space objects as well.

Rabble. It's themed with my other devices, Pibble, Pabble, and Ribble.

My main server is called Master and my server for testing is called lenno because it's an old Lenovo PC. Ich habe two zfs pools on my main server called Avalon and the newest one is called Pegasus. I named them after the two galaxies from the Star Gate TV Shows.

• space
• magnet
• qdivison
• pi3
• pi3v2

i like fruit, so I have kiwi, mango, ...

tools for my docker host with most services running on it truenas for my truenas host p01-p03 for my VPSs gpu-linux for my AI art and LLM machine

desktops and laptops are all misc strings that windows or Linux comes up with at install time

Hydra

ever since i first fell in love with warcraft, it's always been kalimdor people, points, and places

Only two I've thought through naming are

Roshar - Unraid server where 90% of apps/services live.

Cobalt Guard - Ubiquiti UDMPro

Maybe Knight Radiant or a character who is one, or even one of the orders would have fit better for protecting roshar but I like how cobalt guard sounds for a FW

I use Harry potter characters mostly for wife approval points.

Pi based one was called Dobby runs home assistant and is small

First one was called Fawkes because it was a reused laptop and was hot

Current one is buckbeak because it's fast and like Fawkes came back from dead systems

I have a threadripper at work to come so I'll have to think of what that one will be.

My home server is called Home Alone, my web server Carl Lewis. At work we use names of robots or computers from movies, games or comics.

Sphinx

My Docker machine - JPL

My NAS - Houston

My Laptop - Artemis

I like NASA.

Bob

Lizard-King, Salamander-Witch, Toad-Knight, etc ...

It started with fruit names
Citron, nectarine, fraisedesbois, cassis, yuzu, abricot...
Then I got tired and call them by what they are
Changedetection, torrents, pihole, reverse, arr, ntfy, homeassistant, nuclias, minecraft, portainer... 😓

My current server is proxmox2, guess why. It runs servers HassOS, OMV and so on.... My desktop is called desktop and my laptop is called with its brand. 🤷

Neptun for the Hardware running Proxmox

Docker-Server-1 and so on for the VMs

Workstations machines get first name type names that are inspired by the brand of the machine. This asus is named adam.

I use famous programmers. First Linux server was Torvalds, first mac was Woz, currently in service I have Kernighan (one of the inventors of C), KJohnson (Katherine Johnson was a programmer for NASA) and Shamir (The S in RSA).

Media-Svr
PiHole

Sorry, I'm boring.

I also use mythological names. Specially god names and mainly egyptian gods:

Anubis is my main one, 24/7 server. Ra is the one i use to experiment with and Zeus is my vps with vpn

For some very specialized cases that i used in the past for my Raspberry pi 4, i used Odin (i installed Huggin there), Tenjin (no reason at all, i just like it) and Khonshu

short nicknameserv 2 (accidentally screwed up 1.0’s OS and all of my Apple devices are similar format but phone, pad, etc) for my opencore-updated macOS server.

Lnxserv for my Debian server (boring but followed the naming scheme).

I used to have cool mythological names and the like but anymore I want simplicity and it to be more personal than some deity.

Jean-Luc. My previous home server was a Cisco thin-client and my partner called it Benjamin so when I replaced it, I kept the logic.

Everything has some sort of top:

Slacktop, craptop, proxtop, oldtop, wifetop, and batocera (because I keep forgetting to ssh in and change it).

My partner and I came up with animal names for hostnames. The first server shall be 'bee'

I don’t really name my servers anything special (just hperrin-server, smtp1, smtp2, etc), but I like to name my projects after figures in Greek mythology.

• Nymph, my ORM
• Nephele, my WebDAV server
• Soteria, my security camera system

I tend to use objects in space. My media server is called phobos, and my AzuraCast server is called dorado.

They're a bit meaningless, though, so when I do my planned server upgrade this year I'm going to go with something different. My pfSense server was called sibyl, so perhaps something along those lines.

I always name my PCs with characters from the book I'm currently reading. Here are a few: Teatime, Cthulhu, Dirk, Horus, Binky, Pteppic

fedora and mariahssurface. Im boring :p

From mangas of course!

• YuruYuri San☆Hai! - Proxmox host replacing old YuruYuri bare-metal RHEL server, now with 24-core Threadripper and registered ECC RAM!
• Nanamori-chu☆Goraku-bu (VM on Proxmox) - Replacement of my personal rig, has GPU passthrough
• Nanamori-chu☆Seitokai (VM on Proxmox) - Direct replacement of old YuruYuri working as my primary server
• I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl - Oracle Cloud VM, for high bandwidth and speed applications (e.g. mirror)
• WATATEN!: An Angel Flew Down to Me - Old personal rig (MacBook Pro 16" 2019 with Arch) which is still used for managing Proxmox

Normally I don't change the names that the distribution gives to the hostname, but I've been thinking for a while about changing the names to mythological gods or Latin tree names only for server and SBC.

The only server for which I have changed the host name is now r5700server. r5700 for the processor (Ryzen 7 5700), and server because it's a server.

My first VPS was for a Minecraft server so I named it cobblestone. I've kept using Minecraft related names for all my machines since then, and I try to pick ones that are at least vaguely related to the function or appearance of the machine. For example my cluster has brute for the master and piglin01-piglin04 for the workers, but those are the only ones I've numbered.

The exception is my two Klipper RPi's, one is octopi since that's what it originally ran, and the other is named after the model of the printer. For some reason I never named my printers.

I probably wouldn't use a naming scheme like this for production servers though - I'd either go with functional hostnames or something like the periodic table which you can pick from arbitrarily. My home servers and clients aren't cattle though, so I like having a little personality to the names there.

I do random things like the names of vegetables or colors or car brands. But right now I am using Borg designations. Not in use, but an example would be eleven@twelve. Although not a server, I tend to add the capacity to USB drives. They are issued a number and I keep track of them. When one dies it gets deleted from the inventory list. So it would be IssueNumber-capacity 103-04G.

Fuck off EU governments!