I use the names of greek deities for my host names, mostly geared towards the function of the server/computer.

• Nyx (dark-blue laptop)
• Hypnos (gaming machine)
• Argus (pi-hole and reverse proxy)
• Prometheus (minecraft server)

Server (big iron): Bender

Desktop (main character): Fry

Laptop (for accounting): Hermes

Netbook (small and dumb): Nibbler

Phone (held to my head): BrainSlug

HTPC (one big viewport): Leela

Every computer I own is an autobot. My primary machine is always Optimus Prime, has been since 2008. Other machines get other names generally slightly inspired by their role / nature. Bumblebee and CliffJumper are miniPCs of various persuasions, Preceptor is my “mess around with AI” box, my big server that handles most of my data and network services is Wheeljack, my Macbook is Mirage, my backup server is Powerglide, my TV (which is an old Dell all in One running Linux Mint) is UltraMagnus.

I named mine after Rocket League cars.

• Octane (main desktop)
• Breakout (laptop)
• Dominus (laptop; older, larger)

I go for the unoriginal but oh so simple: location-type-No

So HL-SRV-01 is “homelab server no 1”

HS-DSK-02 is “House desktop no2”

NA-LPT-01 is “Not Applicable” because this is my admin laptop that I expect to move around a lot so I always treat it as high-risk.

For my ProxMox server stuff I went with Lord of the Rings. The idea being the servers would be locations and the VMs would characters.

So right now my main server is Rivendell, and my PiHole on it is Gandalf (“You shall not pass!” Heehee eventually he’ll have OPNSense too…)

If I get HomeAssistant at some point, obviously that’ll be Samwise!

My Klipper VM for 3D printing is Celebrimbor, and the individual printers are named after various deities or myth figures of crafting/smithing/creativity like Brigid and Eitri.

For my client devices, I name my personal hardware after BattleTech mechs and that works well. It’s intuitive because I can line up various roles and weight classes.

So my main desktop is Timberwolf, and my laptops are named after light mechs like Kitfox or Mistlynx.

Phones and tablets I don’t really care about, they usually just name themselves after their model anyway. :)

I Used Gondolin for my PC but after reinstalling I didn’t put it back on and left the default

The printer’s name is Marvin, from HHGTTG.

It never wants to work and always complains.

I originally named all my hardware after members of the Wu-Tang Clan plus some close affiliates, but I actually ran out of names, so now I use MFDOOM aliases for my workstations, and keep Wu-Tang for infrastructure, because it’s for the children.

Used to be names from Neuromancer like “ono-sendai” and variations of that.

Now laptop is “flat”, server is named after it’s purpose like log, mail, mon, hosting, storage, etc.

Mine are named after the penguins from the Madagascar movie : Skipper, Private, Kowalski, and Rico.

Unfortunately there’s only four so I often supplement with a suffix. For example, I’ve got an old windows laptop kicking around that is “rico-w”

… I should really commit to a naming scheme with a wider array of options.

localhost

Why: for privacy/anonymity concerns

My home network is called The IT Clowd with these devices:

• Moss - physical server
• Roy - physical server
• Jen - vm - main docker host
• Richmond - vm - *arr stack
• Denholm - vm - management, monitoring
• Douglas - vm - Home Assistant stack
• Basement - vm - development server

Used to be astronomy based. Sol for actual network and then planets and stellar bodies and stuff. But I have so many devices now.

Now I just make it ass informative with as free letters as possible. Almost everything is 3 or 4 letters long.

So like fsrv for file server, msvr for media server and so on.

Naming my devices after stars. Specifically stars in Ursa-Major

Desktop: alioth Laptop: alkaid Smartphone: alcor SteamDeck: dubhe Server: sarir