Recently I started thinking about computer names, and more so how you name them, and how my naming conventions have evolved over the years I’ve been involved in the industry.

When I started doing home computing on such a level that I had more than one computer connected to the internet in my own personal LAN I saw the need to name the with a bit more afterthought than just “DELL”. Initially I just had an old Dell and an HP Brio, so I called them “DELL” and “BRIO”. Then I got my hands on another computer that served me as my web-server, so it got named “SERVER”. All was well and completely unimaginative until the day I got another identical HP Brio. Then I was faced with a problem. I could have named them “BRIO1” and “BRIO2”, but that was dull and I would have had a hard time telling them apart. I could have named them after their function, as one worked as a workstation and one as a server, but that was just as dull, so I named them after appearance. You see, one of them had been painted black, and as the other one was that unimaginative white-gray color in which all computing equipment came in back in the day, I named them “Blackbox” and “Whitebox”. Still, looking back, it wasn’t very imaginative, but compared to the dullness of earlier naming conventions, this was the epitome of creativity.

Now, as a new status quo had emerged, not much happened for a while (except that the previously defunct “SERVER” got two new NIC’s and got named “SMOOTHWALL”, which is more than self-explanatory.).

Then a new era emerged, which was the start of the system I still use and quite like, which I will simply call “The Classic Era”.
It started (as all the other “evolutions”) with me buying a new computer, and this time I went for brand new hardware, top of the line, as I just had gotten my first paycheck from my first real job. And as this was a proper computer, it needed a proper name. And as the casing was black, I went looking for something that resembled darkness and the absence of light.

Can you guess which name I ended up with? Probably not if you aren’t very well versed in old Greek and Roman mythology, as the goddess I named my computer after isn’t that famous. I named my computer “Nox”, the Roman name for the Greek goddess Nyx, the the primordial goddess of the night.

This is quite intriguing, as I can’t remember where I found that name, but my best guess is some kind of computer name generator of the internet, but I still think it’s an awesome name, which is why I continued using mythological names for all my computers (and recently a telephone as well) with one exception only, which was my newest webserver,  who for some reason got a word play for name, “Nightrunner”.

I’m not going to dwell further on how I named each and every computer here after, but I will list them so you can see the trend;

• Phoenix, a laptop
• Paradox, my newest workstation
• Ceto, my mobile phone, a Nokia N78

The only really interesting name is “Ceto” which is quite interesting as it both refers to “a hideous sea monster” and a particular female ocenaid, which is a sort of sea nymph. It’s also quite interesting as both names come from Greek mythology. Personally I prefer the latter, as it’s more charming.

Now that you know how I name my computers, how about you tell me your methodology in the comment section?

Categories: Tech

Tags: it, networking, Tech