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. 😅 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.  
 
 

Now let your pants down and tell me all about

your embarrassing host names!

(page 4) 50 comments
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I use lore from Starcitizen (planet name, space station, satellite, etc.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I usually use pokémon, typically from the first few generations.

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

Norbert, Norbina, Morbert, Morbina, Hassio, Nassio

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

AI from fiction:

HAL M.O.T.H.E.R AM Jarvis

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I use characters from Haikyu and Thor.

I have asahi, hinata, daichi and heimdal running.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Man I do variations of food truck that don’t exist. Example. Gaming pc : food station Phone:food truck Laptop: foodpad Server:foodcentre

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

I wouldn't say my hostnames are very creative, but they all have some kind of backstory.

Main desktop: POwOful
It's a pretty powerful desktop, so why not call it that :)

Laptop: LenOwO
Can you guess the laptop brand?

Server 1: Shitbox
It's my first server box I ever built, so it's underpowered and pretty shitty.

Server 2: Stowage
My proper server with actual data parity, and it's pretty powerful

Server 3: Jank
This one is another shitmix of hardware with random harddrives in raid 0. I am aware that they'll die at some point, and all of that data stored on it will be lost, so i use it as temporary storage whenever I need to copy something from one machine to another.

Robot vacuum: suckywucky
Yea....

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
  • Omnigon: refers to my network and server overall
  • Terragon: Utility desktop
  • Pyrogon: Gaming desktop
  • Aquagon: Laptop
  • Aerogon: Phone
  • Sonogon: RPi sound server
  • Minigon: Cyberdeck
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Man I’m lame.

Used to be {env}-function##

Now it’s {env}-{vlanlocation}-function##

VLAN location such as DMZ, Infra, Jump for jump boxes, IOTSec or IOTInsec, Etc

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I name mine after space! Earth, Moon, Mars, Saturn, etc...

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All my personal devices are named "AHE"+n. So the abbreviation for "at heart engineer"+ a letter signifying the device. So my phone is "AHEM", my laptop is "AHEL", my desktop is "aheo" (O for office), my server is "ahes".

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Mine are all named for the colour of the case, or case accent when ambiguous, though network infrastructure items are named for their models, being the typical default.

I sometimes use A records or mDNS-SD for the actual services provided and use a *.home.arpa. domain.

Another theme at another site is native fauna and flora names.

No cringe, no pop culture.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I use some generic names.

  • Phone: phone
  • Current Laptop: fedora
  • Old laptop: laptop
  • Router: openwrt
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

My only currently active machine is a laptop named buttwarmer as per my cat's suggestion.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Devices are named after characters from books I recently read, trying to match the name with the character of the book. But for virtual hosts for services I use their purpose (wiki, files, feed…) because I wasted too much time updating all the bookmarks last time I migrated to a new server.

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

I used the names of the eldrazi from magic the gathering:

Ulamog: desktop PC Emrakul: NAS / Plex server name Kozilek: NUC mini PC

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Named mine after "objects" from Iain M. Banks' Culture Novels.

Currently I have:

  • gsv
  • hub
  • excession
  • drone

Nice and short, and map roughly to the "power level" of the hardware, so to speak.

And my Yubikeys are named after Special Circumstances agents 😄

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

I use readable names.

I'm using one system for testing purposes, so it's called testingPC.

Any containers are named for the container purposes, like my pihole is named pihole.

My system is so boring that any person were to pick it up after I got hit by a bus would be able to figure out everything.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

I tend to use food names, like tomato and sausage. But no potato, and definitely no apple.

I also utilize the special-use domain home.arpa for all my LAN systems, so accidental collisions are largely impossible.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Physical machines (except my gaming PC) get Ratchet & Clank character names, and matching labels to go with it. My trusty sidekick Thinkpad T14 G1 is named "Clank". It runs LMDE.

VMs and LXCs get actually-descriptive names, since those are what run my services.

Gaming PC is called "Dagny"; it's a Scandinavian name for "a new day", since that PC was a gift to myself after my divorce. It's currently the only Windows machine in my house now.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

I name them after a female important character in whatever novel I'm enjoying when I set the system up. Back when I was single the female was important, now it is just tradition.

Since I like fantasy there are plenty of names available that are both pronounceable and nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

I went with alpha, beta, gamma ...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I do marvel weapons/artifacts:

Phone: Mjolnir

Tablet: Stormbreaker

Laptop: Darkhold

Earbuds: I.C.E.R

Backup NAS: EyeOfAgamotto

Etc, etc 😅

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think a similar post came few time ago, but no ashamed in my case. I use late pet names, for me as a tribute to their memory. Also, I try to put some logic in the name, like the squirrel name for a lightweight VM with not much services / workload or dog name for the reverse proxy (guardian function).

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Desktop: Octiron
Laptop: Octogen
Phone: Octarine

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

At home, colors Whatever color the purpose is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Too many hosts.
Current scheme: British towns names. They are quite unique.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I skimmed that article but didnt get the joke until I came back. BRB, making a new gmail account.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I select hostnames drawn from the ordinal numerals of whatever language I happen to be trying to learn. Recently, it was Japanese so the first host was named "ichiro", the second as "jiro", the third as "saburo".

Those are the romanized spellings of the original kanji characters: 一郎, 二郎, and 三郎. These aren't the ordinal numbers per-se (eg first, second, third) but are an old way of assigning given names to male children. They literally mean "first son", "second son", "third son".

Previously, I did French ordinal numbers, and the benefit of naming this way is that I can enumerate a countably infinite number of hosts lol

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I've gone through lots of themes. These days it's mostly where things are or what they are for. Topshelf, closet, code lives on monkey, work laptop is named work. I've had more fun themes but the novelty wore off.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

ok so don't hate me but h001, h002, h003, and so on.

That's h for host. I also use n to number networks, and k to number physical keys.

I list them all in my keepassxc password database, where I can include any additional information.

With the prevalence of vms, docker containers, and docker networks, there's just too many things to name. By numbering them I can just side step that whole game.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I mostly use battlestar galactica ship names for my own hardware, but it's been mixed with boring '.mydomain.foo' names as well. I should rename a bunch of stuff around and include them in my DNS.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I use Arthurian legend related stuff. Servers and desktops are locations. My portable devices are the names of swords. IoT devices are more explicitly descriptive since I won't need to type in, but it's more important to recognize them when I see them, like lightswitch-livingroom.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I name based on OS and location.

fedoraDesktop fedoraLaptop fedoraServer fedoraSchoolServer unraid qnap ubuntuServer

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They're all some kind of machine. Steam deck: SteamMachineryV1

PC: ArchMachineryV2

Phone: Android_μMachine

Oddly enough my server goes by MonoVerse, which I named first and I guess it just stuck.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They're all some kind of machine. Steam deck: SteamMachineryV1

PC: ArchMachineryV2

Phone: Android_μMachine

Oddly enough my server goes by MonoVerse, which I named first and I guess it just stuck.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Ubiquitous and Tiamat are my servers, Polyglotal for my home assistant voice endpoint, and some more. Points for the reference

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I gave up on cute or clever names a while ago; now I go with “storage0”, “router0”, “wap00”, “vmhost0”. Always with a numeric suffix because there will be a -1, -2 some day.

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