I just built a new PC and I'm having trouble deciding on a hostname. I used to name them after the CPU inside, but my last PC got a CPU upgrade halfway through so the name didn't make sense anymore. So I guess I need a new system.
What are some naming systems you all use?
Midgard is not mythical.
Then it transitioned to plants and trees: aster, begonia, willow, maple. I had a shift in life where I began to value the organic world more than dry, boring metals.
My first Linux machine was `congo`. My oldest extent one is `volga`. And my beefiest (biggest) machine is `nile`.
My local backup NAS is `danube`, and my offsite server is `yangtze`.
If I were you, and didn't want boring job-themed names, choose a theme and use it.
You could choose mountains, and your biggest machine could be `everest`, while your most sacred could be `olympus`.
Or you could choose cities, Pokemon, anime characters, authors, fish, mammals, etc. Any category with a lot of items. Seas, for example, won't work because there aren't many.
Homeserver: Nyx is the Greek goddess of the night. She is one of the primordial deities and is often depicted as a powerful and fearsome figure, respected even by Zeus.
Workstation: The name "Xeno" comes from the Greek word "xenos," meaning "stranger" or "foreigner." While "xenos" itself is not a mythological figure, the concept of the stranger or the unknown plays an important role in many Greek myths and stories, often with dark or threatening connotations.
Notebook: Ker: Keres (plural of Ker) are Greek death spirits. They are winged entities that represent violent or untimely death and are often depicted as fearsome and ominous.
(I asked chatgpt for explainations of the names, because iam not a native english speaker.) I use the naming scheme like over a decade now.
I like the name of my home net the most. Its enti.ty.
The theme I use is Final Fantasy characters.
Pudge is for a fat server with some VMs and more RAM.
Invoker is multi-purpose VPS without a specified one goal.
Riki is a RPi.
Rylai (Crystal Maiden) is for a MacMini, because it's all white and reminds me of snow.
I had Meepo for hosting a Matrix instance. Social communication means multiple people, so Meepo seems to fit perfectly. But it's switched off now (Meepo is not an easy character to play).
I have Ostarion for a seedbox, I'm switching providers from time to time, and I keep killing it and raising a new instance once every while.
I'll share overlapping advice: don't name (conference rooms) after geographical locations or places, eg: "We're meeting in Colorado/Houston" ... too much opportunity for confusion.
I spent a little time looking for the OG "hacker's dictionary" style advice for hostname naming, but it's tough to find now, and the RFC is more official and close enough.
My fun little naming technique for my "fleet" of pi-zeros was "juan, deux, tree, faux, ..."
Cattle not pets means you can pick "fun" names for your personal (pet) computers, eg, my first SSD Max Mini I called "rock", first laptop after that I called "slab".
Something emotional or memorable is nice, or just keep flipping through word-pairs from diceware to find something suitable. https://diceware.dmuth.org/