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 stuff is named after planets / ships in Star wars.

Server is coruscant

Desktop is malastare

Laptop is anaxes

Portable hard drives are ships

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)

My Raspberry Pi is named ‘raspberrypi’. I’m very creative.

Lastname-Server

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

Firstname-Laptop

Firstname-Desktop

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).

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.

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

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

vault101 was retired a few years ago and migrated to vault111

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, Eve…

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

Networking hardware gets descriptive names for their location and purpose.

I named my PiHole holypi

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

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

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)