this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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Hi fellow selfhosters!

What hostnames do you use for your systems and services?
And maybe why if it's an interesting story.

I'll start:
Steam Deck: krax
Smartphone: krix (once I get LineageOS installed again)
MiniPC: krux
Reserved for future use: krex & krox

Creative, I know. πŸ˜… The names have no deeper meaning. The x comes from Linux. That's it.

I know some of you use god names of certain pantheons, such as Thor. But I find that boring as a lot of people are doing that. Β 
Β 
Β 

Now let your pants down and tell me all about

your embarrassing host names!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

localhost

Why: for privacy/anonymity concerns

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I started with pirates of the carribean, so...

blackpearl: main PC Redpearl: raspberry pi Purplepearl: refurbished laptop. The router is ... router

The phone is zizidane ("donkey dick" in French, also playword on Zinedine Zidane).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I have three Proxmox nodes named: acid1, freebones, and a partially decommissioned node aptly named pve

acid1 was named from a sticker I got in a big collection. I was extra sold on the name when I did some research into acid1 tests.

freebones is from an inside joke from a GPT3.5 bot I terribly finetuned using my friend groups entire chat history. At one point the bot randomly said β€œalgebra: you get free bones” and I kind of just ran with that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

I have node named pve too. Small world.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I've named my last few computers after planets, with disks named after moons.

When I worked at Microsoft they had all kinds of clusters - OurGang with Spanky, Darla, Alfalfa... Addams with Gomez etc, Disney with Mickey, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

Same, all celestial names.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm similar, but it's internal drives are planets, while external drives are moons.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

When I run out of the solar system I'm going to move on to Star Wars.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My phone's name is "Samsung Smart Fridgeβ„’" because I think it's hilarious if someone is looking at hotspots or network info and go "what the hell is a fridge doing here-"

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So many answers!!

First it was from planets from Ursula Le Guin's Hainish cycle.

Now it's the names of birds visiting my feeder: chickadee, titmouse, mockingbird, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I usually name my devices after Greek gods and godesses; Artemis, Hermes, Metis, Athena, Apollo etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Shit I thought I was so damn novel. Blast you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)
  • Knowledge - Desktop
  • Enlighten - Laptop
  • Insanity - Server
  • Madness - Router
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

I went with Willow related naming.

My main server and NAS is Madmartigan. Proxmox server is Willow. Headless gaming machine is Sorsha. Bedroom/office laptop is Elora Danan Living room laptop is High Aldwin Then two raspberry Pi's named Rool and Franjean.

I'm not even into Willow that much, I just wanted to find a world of characters I liked.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use the most boring names: LASTNAME-LAPTOP LASTNAME-PHONE LASTNAME-SERVER LASTNAME-ROUTER

But, living in tight suburban spaces, I'm never confused whether a device is mine or somebody else's.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Me too: firstname-device_model

alice-laptop_XPS

bob-cell_i12

I feel so boring!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Shit. Here I thought I was creative.

I use my alias butter. With either the device or the OS if I'm dual booting or distrohopping.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I use League of Legends regions. Except for one of them which is not a region but is called "lantern" after the Thresh's lantern in which souls are trapped.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I use zerg units.

  • NAS is named Nydus
  • Homelab with a GPU is Hydralisk
  • Jail instance that I can use for random cron jobs is Drone
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My laptop is called xontros-gatos, which in my native language means fat-cat. Similarly, my server is called server-cat, a small laptop that I have for testing stuff is called small-cat and a new laptop that I just got is called fatter-cat.

I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS I LIKE CATS

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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 - monitoring, logging
  • Douglas - vm - Home Assistant stack
  • Basement - vm - development server
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I don't have a whole network setup like the rest of you guys, but I've been naming my desktop pc's SHODAN ever since I built my first one. Secondary/partner's pc is named XERXES. I'll probably never change them.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is my scheme as well! Pretty much to the t. Except my HTPC is hypnotoad and nibbler is my NAS.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

OMG Hypnotoad HTPC is so much better! Why didn't I thnnk of that?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Uhg y'all actually have creative names, here are mine:

My homelab - Pero-base
My main PC - Pero-main
My laptop - Pero-portable
My other server - Pero-web

I swear I'm not a narcissist.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

my local hostnames are all David Bowie related. I have: outside (my laptop) blackstar (server 1) starman (server 2) heros (desktop1)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

I only have 1 box really, it's named Hal. Seems helpful, not entirely sure if it's on my side. Could murder me. I keep an analog shotgun next to it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I’ve always done characters from Beatles songs

  • Walrus
  • Martha
  • Her-Majesty
  • Submarine
  • MissLizzy
  • Blackbird
  • NowhereMan
  • SgtPepper
  • Jojo
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Y'all are too creative for me... I have:

  • poweredge-r520-0
  • poweredge-t620-0
  • poweredge-t620-1
  • pi4-0
  • pi3b-0
  • pi3b-1
  • pi3b-2
  • pi3b-3
  • vostro-3525-0
  • ideapad-c340-0
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Colour + noun:

  • redbug
  • bluecar
  • yellowboat
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When I was 18 and in my first job, my boss and I installed the very first windows NT file servers for a major uk public sector organisation. They were all named after beers that we'd drunk on team nights out. We had Blacksheep, Tanglefoot, Snecklifter, and so on. They were in a test environment so it didn't matter. Until they went into production...

That was over 30 years ago now, but I still usually resort to beers.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Three-letter words that can be typed with one hand, since I have to type them frequently.

$ egrep "^([qwertasdfgzxcvb]{3}|[yuiophjkllnm]{3})$" /usr/share/dict/words
[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I name my devices after greek gods based on what I'm going in life at the time or after what their purpose is.

I named my first gaming PC "Poseidon" when I was doing ship related work. Now it's my server.

My gaming PC is "Asclepius", the Greek god of healing. Built when I got into healthcare.

Hermes, god of messeges, is my lil pi that helps with routing (pihole, pivpn, nginx).

My HTPC is Dionysus, Greek god of wine and parties.

My thinkpad is Persephone cus it looks good but doesn't do much. I might rename it.

The services that I run on these are just named "device-service" e.g. hermes-nginx

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I use characters from whichever book I'm reading at the time. Examples:

  • Arya: From ASOIAF, a small but powerful Ultrabook
  • Cthulhu: From HP Lovecraft, a huge 17" laptop
  • Horus: From the Horus Heresy books, A powerful laptop
  • Binky: Death's white horse from discworld, a white desktop
  • Peaches: A rat that always carries a book with her. My home server
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

My devices are named after planets from Doctor Who: mondas, telos, skaro, villengard.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I set up my current desktop while reading Gaiman's The Sandman, so it's called Morpheus. Because I felt I needed to keep with the theme, my laptop is hades, my phone persephone, my server apollo, my router helios, the media centre PC is orpheus, the pi that boots and updates it outside of usage hours is eurydice, and the pi that runs home assistant is zeus (because it's responsible for light(n)ing.

Oh, and the work profile on my phone is sisyphos.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Huh. I thought for sure someone else would be using my scheme.

LAN computers are all Tolkien swords: sting, orcrist, gurthang, glamdring, etc. If I run out of swords, I'll start adding other weapons: aeglost, the spear; dailir, the arrow. We don't get a lot of named battle axes, which I always thought weird; I'd think dwarves of all people would forge legendary axes, and certainly name them.

My WiFi and VPN networks are forests in Middle Earth: fangorn, bindbole, dimholt, lothlorien, etc. The only exception is my LAN itself which is... "lan". Because short.

My cloud VPSes are named after Greek Titans: hyperion, phaethusa, tethys, etc.

Mobile devices have whatever names they come with, because they're so ephemeral.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago (5 children)

MacBook Pro: mbp.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 2: rpi2.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 3: rpi3.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 4: rpi4.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 5: rpi5.domain.com
(Yes, I have one of each.)
Synology DS415+: ds415.domain.com
Phone: iphone.domain.com
Watch: watch.domain.com
AppleTV: appletv.domain.com
Nintendo Switch: switch.domain.com

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm missing the rpi1 in that list. Please fix ASAP.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Solar System objects for my local network and names of extra solar objects for my offside servers. With all the moons and named trans neptunian objects in the solar system I so far had no issues finding a hostname candidate.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

My devices are cringely named after songs in Haken's discography.

Desktop is MESSIAH. Laptop is AFFINITY. Phone is NIGHTINGALE. Steam Deck is SHAPESHIFTER. Router (and its WAP) is PORTALS. My NAS is the only one that falls outside of this, it's generically (last name)NetNAS. I should rename it, but I don't want to break anything πŸ˜…

Eta: changed my NAS' hostname is ARCHITECT. Nothing broke! Yay for me.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I recently de-embarrassed my hostnames. I went with names that are one step removed from being dead obvious. Feels nice having descriptive, but not uncreative, names for everything

  • Custom built desktop pc: Studio
  • Home theater PC: Theater
  • Server: Gamut (this was Nexus until I ran into bs regarding the TLD preload list in web browsers... had to go with a non-tld name)
  • Everything else: Based off the model. For example, my Asus Vivobook S 15 is just "Vivobook", etc
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