For personal devices, carried on me, they're used in many contexts, and so I choose simple names with some self-description. I'm currently using k2mbp, I pun this into a mountain theme on this host. My previous laptops have included, kmbp, mmbp, nmbp. I've liked this over descriptive or evocative names.
Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
51–60 of 77 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#52I use old man names, old man names in this case being those names which where archaic when I was little and only very old men had them. No idea why, just started doing it 25 years ago and kept it up. But hostname for my main computer has always been yeoman, I assume it is because it does the yeoman's share but I really don't remember, might have just been a whim.
Out of all the comments, this one speaks to me the most. No idea why either :) but I think I have my new system. Thank you for posting this!
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#53I use names from the ancient greeks. 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 ro…
omg same here, I used Greek Mythological creature list from wiki
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#54Characters from the Mario universe (except Mario and Luigi): toad, peach, bowser, goomba, kamek, etc.
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#55Celestial bodies for a while, lots asteroid and moon names to use!
After I rationalised my home network it just feel back to “productname.internal.suffix”
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#56I've only had at most 3 computers running at the same time that are truly 'mine', with no other function that I could name easily, like "NAS 2" or "Backup Home"
They rotate the names Balthasar, Melchior, and Casper
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#57Back in the last century I worked for a company called MountainGate, where all the machines were predictably named after mountains. This suited my backpacking self well, and I continued the tradition with my own hardware after leaving: Dana, Tresidder, Hoffman, Lyell...
Anarchist writers are my present theme: Goldman, Proudhon, Bookchin, Kropotkin... perhaps Graeber will be next.
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#58Dragon name generator:
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#59I use names from Stargate.
Ships are personal devices, races are servers, planets are network devices, etc.
Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a hostname for personal devices?
#60RFC 1178 has you covered: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1178.html >
From that RFC: "Some more suggestions are: mythical places (e.g., Midgard, Styx, Paradise)"
Midgard is not mythical.