Also, groups of elements can correspond to types of computers. Halogens can be embedded devices, noble gasses can be gaming machines, alkali metals can be file servers, etc.

Also, hydrogen - firewall/GW, oxygen - mail server, carbon - public web server, iron - source repository.

It's a whole wiki full of naming schemes. It actually included the one I am using (Battlestar Galactica callsigns), which I though should have been pretty unique.

I'd probably avoid Eyjafjallajokull, though.

For a short while I used characters from children's books (mom is a librarian who loves children's books), this included lafcadio, lorax and grinch.

Right now it's robots from Futurama. Bender, flexo (the Win XP dual-boot of bender, which is OSX), clamps, roberto (the crazy, stabbing robot), calculon and my dedicated server, robot-devil.

Not that anyone asked, but hey, naming schemes are fun!

I suspect they were ok with "cholera", but someone in the legal department got upset with "ebola". I think the rest had been disabled by that point, and I'm sure they were already off the internal dns.

For the longest time, their servers were named after ships, such as Bismark, Arizona, Enterprise, etc, while all of our servers were named after things that sink ships, such as Broadside, Salvo, Crash, Leak, etc.

You could even partition hostnames, e.g. all workstations in room 1 are named after famous rock stars, all workstation in room 2 are named after famouse rappers, etc.

Arial (laptop), Futura (internet tablet), Minion (home server), Courier (router), Perpetua (VPS), etc.

Oops. My work computer is Spaz, my iPhone is Dirty Sanchez and my laptop is Dingleberry.

http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog31/abstracts.php?pt=NjExJ...

My current scheme is using major LA thoroughfares (Pico, Victory, Ventura, etc) but as I'm unlikely to scale beyond two digits, I'm not worried ;-)

My current workstation is pfefirrit. In the past, I've had fizz, click, karthwine, ninebirds, nuzzledark, nipslither, bast-imret, earnotch, and knet-makri as servers. My old workstations were cloudleaper, bite-then-bark, pop, hushpad, and tailchaser. My firewall was meerclar.

As far as laptops go, I've used munin, hugin, odin, krelli, skoggi, krauka, nrefa-o, mnanth, and caylith.

Back when I did IT for a couple of schools, I used chemical compounds in a certain fashion to reflect room numbers.

I worked at a place that gave female names to all the computers. It was a little awkward.

Troi (MacBook), Picard (iMac), Locutus (Mini), Crusher (MBP).

At uni, most of the computers were named after distilleries. i.e. Livet, Morangie, Grant, Islay etc.

Originally I named devices after computer science visionaries — the computer I built, I named Kilby, after Jack Kilby.

Around 2000 with Grub I did bugs. Ant, roach, mosquito, brainbug (from starship troopers).

2005 or so a buddy got started using Roman names for servers. Dido, Leptis, Aeneas, Ulysses, Spartacus.

My home computers are super heros/villains. Superman, ironman, greenlantern, jeangrey, magneto, thing, hulk.

BSG callsigns sound awesome, and somebody else mentioned colors, but I think scaling that gets confusing, especially if you're color blind, as I am.

I quite like the idea of using the word 'petaQ' to name a computer, especially if it happens to be a Windows machine.

Here's some I've used:

- tau-zero

- subtleknife

- Dark Light (iPhone)

- Omega Device (iPod Nano - I like this one :)

- skyroad

- zodiac

I'm currently using Greek Gods, but surely Roman Gods should be just as efficient. Planets should work as well, if you include imaginary planets (From, say, Star Wars)

Naming schemes help keep the fun in managing computers.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/verity_stob_name_you... - Don't call me Ishmael - Choosing a name for your new PC

Currently using types of peppers in work.

Using characters or items from Neuromancer for personal stuff. My netbook is onosendai.

- myrtle

- mindy

- mabel

- ilene

- irma

- iris

- patsy

- floy

- agnes

- nellie

Nellie, of course, is my beautiful NeXT cube.