Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 15 years and 2 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I found this interesting article via Slashdot this morning that explores the topic of naming computers.

I don’t really remember when I started naming my machines, but I’m sure it started once I had a home network with more than one PC. I do remember that my first naming scheme was using characters from Babylon 5 (kosh, londo, vir, etc.). At some point I switched to Farscape and have been using that ever since: rygel, sikozu, moya, talyn, stark, katratsi, zhaan, grayza, etc. (I’m about to run out, actually, unless I start re-using old names from retired machines).

When I was still a consultant many years ago I worked at a company that used the periodic table of the elements for their server names (they even had a Periodic Table of the Servers printed out and hung on a wall … it was huge). That was a bit confusing as I could never remember if argon was a database server, or maybe that was hydrogen, or carbon?

At my current job, the old naming convention was Star Wars characters and locations (I’m responsible for VADER and SIDIOUS, for example) but new servers are given more logical, coded names (like LOC02MAIL03) which are less fun but more functional.