What host names do you use?

I just memorise the IPs lmao. then again I only have 1 or 2 hosts up on my network ever

I take a word that's related to the purpose of the new host and put it in an online translator and cycle through languages until I get something cool.

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)
- My two wifi bands have always been Castor and Pollux.

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.

The printer's name is Marvin, from HHGTTG.
It never wants to work and always complains.

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.

All my hostnames are after Zen Buddhist concepts, like shikaku, hongaku, mushin, wuwei, jiyu, etc. My printer is the only thing that breaks this trend, it is named pos
- Why not Saṃsāra? Or maybe it's Rin'ne in Japanese?

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.

References to The Dark Tower or Murakami characters.

Asterix & Obelix themed.
Asterix is a rpi4, strong and small with ssd running dockers with homeassistant, revproxy and webserver, and camera storage.
Idefix is a rpi3, mainly test only nowadays.
Obelix is my desktop running voidlinux.
I used to have Pneumatix which is the mailman as the mail server and Panoramix, the druid, as domoticz server, Heroix, chief, as firewall and Bellefleur, beauty, as webserver 😉 All were LXD virtual servers on a pentium 3. I try to find a character matching the functionality. Except for domoticz all are now dockers on Asterix, so less use of funny names.
Non linux machines would be roman names from Asterix & Obelix, but I have none ..
At work we used famous dogs. Laika, Pluto, Cerberus etc

Rock types and Greek gods. Everything from emerald to Aphrodite.

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.
- Why limit yourself to the penguins?

I named mine after Rocket League cars.
Octane (main desktop)
Breakout (laptop)
Dominus (laptop; older, larger)

My little pony. My pihole is pinkypie, mediaserver trottingham, homeassistant is ponyville, and my backup server is canterlot. And so on... :)
- No.
  
  No you.

I have pebble, pabble, pibble, rebble, rabble, ribble and nibble.
Though the primary server is old enough that it was from a time when I named everything after Transformers, so it's Shockwave.

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.

pretty new setup but so far I've got
symmetra - synology dsm (nas)
junkrat - intel nuc main server
need to name my desktop/laptop now and maybe networking gear. thinking ramattra for the router and zenyatta for the bridge

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

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. :)

Naming my devices after stars. Specifically stars in Ursa-Major
Desktop: alioth Laptop: alkaid Smartphone: alcor SteamDeck: dubhe Server: sarir

localhost
Why: for privacy/anonymity concerns
- Hmm, what does localhost.local do if you use mdns?
  Also, your router must be a bit confusing:
  localhost - 192.168.1.2
  localhost - 192.168.1.3
  ...
  
  Fixes IP for me, but I admit I don't have a lot of services to access to like OP does

My phone's name is "Samsung Smart Fridge™" 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-"
- That's hilarious. Now I wanna set up a Wi-Fi hotspot with that SSID at a local library or something for lulz.
  Something like "LG Dishwasher".

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).

I usually name my devices after Greek gods and godesses; Artemis, Hermes, Metis, Athena, Apollo etc.
- Shit I thought I was so damn novel. Blast you.

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.
- Same, all celestial names.
- I'm similar, but it's internal drives are planets, while external drives are moons.
  
  When I run out of the solar system I'm going to move on to Star Wars.
- Nice. I might copy your idea.

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 “algebra: you get free bones” and I kind of just ran with that
- I have node named pve too. Small world.

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.
- This is the most solar punk answer ever! XD Love it. That's really neat. I struggle so much with naming schemes.

Knowledge - Desktop
Enlighten - Laptop
Insanity - Server
Madness - Router
- Gotta say, from what I've heard from the trenches, "insanity" and "madness" sound like fantastic names for printers or print servers, but the router also makes perfect sense! Lol

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.

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
- "Scale with more ProxMox nodes? Don't you mean
  S̸̡̗͉̰̭̬͙̲̩̖̫͔̹̓͛̓̈́̋̈́̊̂̕͡P̶̫̱̜͌́̒̐̄̈́́͐̒̅̆̎͋́͘A̴͙̬͇̐̋̓̋̇̋̒̏̀̀͒͡W̷̡̧̙̭̫̅̐͂̿̋̔̏͗͗̔̄͌̈́͝N̷̡̨̙͉̜̲̗̽͆̊̒̽̐̏̾̇̊̋̓̎͝ ̷̛̟͗̈́Ṃ̸̛͖̤̖̐̇́́̏̐́̋Ơ̶̼̤̣̊̎̔͑̈̈́̇̊͝A̸̧̢͇̣̰̫̙̼͈͈͈͉̼͙̻͑̽̿̊̌͝Ŗ̵̜̦͇̲̜̼͕̞̮̱̝̬̯̓͒̀͛̅͐̌͡͠ͅ ̵̧̺͕̖̘̟̭̥̳̪͖̗̤̞̎̈́̔͊͝O̴͓̼̥͆̈́̓̓͗̐̆̐́̀͂̕V̵̡͎͈͈̗̞̺̭̘͓̬̻̦̙͉̿̎ͅE̷̓̃̄̿̓̒̈́̇͋̑͘ͅŖ̵̛͖̣̼̘̜̹̻̜͍͉̫͍̞̉͆́̐̍̓̊̈͜L̴̛͉̜̩̞͇͕̞̟͎̱͛̇̎̓͝ͅO̸̡̧̢̯̭̟̝̺̩͔̬̜̼͚̬̽́̇̃̌̏̎̏́́̓͒̅̓͘R̷̨̫͍̹̗̮̹̯͆͗̕ͅD̶̨̡̪̼͕͇̻̲͊͑́͋̈̈́̔̅͠S̷̥̼̘̾̽̆̿̃̈́̾͆̾̏͝͡???"
  
  Hah, they're TrueNAS BSD jails, but yes, now I need to figure out how to rename the "Jails" tab in my UI to overlords.
  Also, all the extra work my self-hosting endeavors generate is "creep".

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.
- Me too: firstname-device_model
  alice-laptop_XPS
  bob-cell_i12
  I feel so boring!
  
  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.

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.

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
- This is my scheme as well! Pretty much to the t. Except my HTPC is hypnotoad and nibbler is my NAS.
  
  OMG Hypnotoad HTPC is so much better! Why didn't I thnnk of that?

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
- I bet your whole network is connected by CAT. :P

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
- Lol your arr stack.
  "Jen what did you do?! I told you never open that door!"

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.
- Nah, just a huge fan of barley tea.

weeb ones

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.

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

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.

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
- fuck, this is way better than my current naming scheme of "customer-devicepurpose>, I'm stealing it for my next setup.
- I do the same but Egyptian

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
- Hmm, this wouldn't work well for me since I use Dvorak. All the vowels are on the left and the most common consonants are on the right.
  My consonant options on the left hand are: py (top) and jkxb (bottom).
- Username checks out
  
  ? A and L are on opposite ends of the keyboard.
  
  Yes, yours too.
  
  You have a mighty big hand if you reach l and a with the same one
- This is the way.

I’ve always done characters from Beatles songs
Walrus
Martha
Her-Majesty
Submarine
MissLizzy
Blackbird
NowhereMan
SgtPepper
Jojo

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
- I have to ask, why start with 0? I never understood this with infrastructure. I would do something like 00000 if I did numbers so it would be easy to sort, but I always started with 1. I'm just curious.
  
  First non negative integer so easy for computer to display.
  I only really use zero in networking names to correspond with an IPv4 address that ends with dot zero.
  I think it's just what you're used to. Like counting bottom to top in teleco versus counting top to bottom in IT.
  
  One possibility could be because in conventional "computer counting" in (most) coding languages, it starts at zero. Like if I make an array of things
  [monke, chimp, peanut]
  monke would be [0]
  chimp would be[1]
  peanut would be [2]
  Once I learned about this concept I started naming enumerated things from 0 usually just to keep a kind of consistency. Maybe I think if it's a habit, I won't make those mistakes as often with code. I dunno. :p
- Finally someone who actually uses a Vostro. Always found that name unreasonably funny.
- This is basically how I do it too.
  I used to be more creative but then I got in the habit of running more servers and swapping hardware more frequently so it got harder to remember what hardware I was actually connecting to. Now they get hardware based names and everything else is named by service-based Ansible roles.

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
- What happens if you add another RPi?
  
  I might rename them. So, e.g. if I’d add another Pi5, the existing one would become rpi5-1 and the new one rpi5-2.
- I'm missing the rpi1 in that list. Please fix ASAP.
  
  That one was called just rpi.domain.com, but didn't stand the test of time...
- I envy you so much
  
  Wait until I tell you about all the small issues this zoo of devices brings with it… haha.

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.
- Slightly unrelated but when my family was remodeling our kitchen in the home I grew up in, we pulled the oven out and found the side of the cabinet had an interesting scrawl on it that must've been from one of the builders:
  "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."
  I found it so amusing wondering what the motive behind that was. So I guess your hostnames kinda reminded me of hidden beer-related tradesman graffiti. XD

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.
- I like your schema. I've used something similar. My hosts have always been sci-fi space/time ships/stations, user accounts are characters from or Captain's of said vessels. Over the years I've had a TARDIS, Serenity, Moya, Out of Bands II, Galactica, Millennium Falcon, Rocinante, etc. It's usually whatever I happen to be discovering or binging at the time I setup the machine. For nearly a decade the TARDIS was my server/NAS because it was bigger on the inside that survived through several generations of smaller devices like laptops and raspberry Pi's named after smaller lighter vessels like Serenity and Rocinante.
  
  Thanks! I've learned in jobs over the years that there are two good ways to choose names:
  Descriptive acronyms: AppDev01Loc01. They're useful in business and large teams, and dull as shit. But practical.
  Mythos with a lot of variation. Characters from your favorite novel is usually bad, because you quickly run out of names. Mythos are usually good, dinosaurs... anything with a lot of variation.
  "Sci fi starships" is a great one! Lots of source material there; the categories basically fall out by themselves. That's a great choice.
- In the past, I used Gimli's family tree for server names. My main server was called "Thorin". I think I had used Thrain and Gloin.
  These days I use Union generals from the civil war:
  Sherman - NAS, media server, nextcloud. Thomas - reverse proxy, adguard1. Ellsworth - arr stack. Sheridan - backup server. dockerhost01 - because naming your servers after their function makes a lot more sense.
  
  In the past, I used Gimli's family tree for server names.
  Oh, that's good.
  Middle Earth is a great source for this stuff, b/c Tolkien filled out the world like a historian.

Colour + noun:
redbug
bluecar
yellowboat

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 😅
Eta: changed my NAS' hostname is ARCHITECT. Nothing broke! Yay for me.
- This is my favorite of the thread.
  You can even call one Host, haha.
  
  Shit, you're right!

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.

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

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

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.

I use Roman gods. Juno, Jupiter, Pluto, etc. I have a beelink minipc that I named Mellona, the Roman goddess of honey 😆
- I use Egyptian gods!

Fedora is called fed. Ubuntu is ubu. Laptop is laptop 🌝
- What happens if you decide to use Fedora or Ubuntu on two devices?
- Naming scheme like John Wick with his dog.

What host names do you use?

Now let your pants down and tell me all about

your embarrassing host names!