I enjoyed Manton’s post about the naming scheme he uses for Micro.blog servers. I see these names pop up in the logs when I go to rebuild my blog, each with a Wikipedia link explaining the origins of the name (that’s a really nice touch).

Having a server or desktop naming scheme is one of those fun little things to do when working with computers. Growing up we named our home desktops after major characters of Lord of the Rings, such as Bilbo, or Frodo, but I never devised a scheme for myself when I started buying my own computers. I may have kept it up if we were doing likewise at work, but when AWS came onto the scene, the prevailing train of thought was to treat your servers like cattle rather than pets. Granted, it is probably the correct approach, especially when the lifecycle of a particular EC2 instance could be as short as a few minutes.

But a few years ago, after buying a new desktop and setting up the old one to be a home server, and finding that I need a way to name them, I figured now was the time for a naming scheme. Being a fan of A Game of Thrones, both the book and the TV series, I’ve came up with one based on the major houses of Westeros.

So, to date, here are the names I’ve chosen:

  • Stark — the M2 Mac Mini that I use as my desktop
  • Tully — the Intel Mac Mini that I use as my home server
  • Crow — a very old laptop that I occasionally use when I travel (this one is a reference to the Night’s Watch)

I think at one point I had an Intel Nuc that was called Ghost, a reference to John Snow’s dire wolf, but I haven’t used that in a while so I may be misremembering things. I also don’t have a name for my work laptop: it’s simply called “work laptop.”