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.

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

I named mine after Rocket League cars.

• Octane (main desktop)
• Breakout (laptop)
• Dominus (laptop; older, larger)

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.

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.

You had me digging through old hosts files and ssh configs to find some of these.

I try to name them something that resembles what they do or has something to do with what their purpose is.

Short is good, and if it can match more than one of the machine's purpose/os/software/look, the better.

If it's some sort of personal machine, it gets a personal name

Phones

• traveller
• pawn
• rook
• bishop

Virtual Workstations

• boxy

• moxy

• sandbox

• cloud

• ship lxc container host

• dock docker host

Laptops

• ciel Razer blade stealth with a rainbow LED keyboard
• arc runs arch.
• lled is a dell

Desktops

• bench
• citadel
• bastion

My personal use devices are all some variation of Pingu (eg. iPingu, Pingtendo etc.), and my NAS devices are based off Pokémon puns (Storlax and Archivysaur currently).

My wife on the other hand is boring, so her’s are just system default.

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".

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

• Cthulhu (primary server)
• Azathoth (backup server)
• Nyarlathotep (main laptop)
• Shodan (router)
• Theseus (rebuilt thinkpad x220)

I named my old white bitfenix prodigy m "Baymax" because it was white and had rounded edges.

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

AI from fiction:

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

@Krik devnull, devzero, devrandom
obv, devnull runs fileserver

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

• Omnigon: refers to my network and server overall
• Terragon: Utility desktop
• Pyrogon: Gaming desktop
• Aquagon: Laptop
• Aerogon: Phone
• Sonogon: RPi sound server
• Minigon: Cyberdeck

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.

I have been using Uranus moons for all my devices.

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.

• Rlyeh -host/nas
• Cthulhu
• Yog
• Yibb
• Hastur
• Hotep
• Cylitha

Usually, some type of pun based on the hardware.

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.

I use characters from Haikyu and Thor.

I have asahi, hinata, daichi and heimdal running.

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

I use "butler" terms, like:

• Jarvis
• Archibald - used for my old Arch desktop
• Alfred

They serve me well, and I give them due respect.

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.

Norbert, Norbina, Morbert, Morbina, Hassio, Nassio

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

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.

Internal server (Home Assistant etc.): domus
External server (Nextcloud etc.): nimbus
Router/firewall: murus

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.

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.

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.

I am a simple person.

My PC: Panda
My wifes PC: notpanda
Docker VM: dockerhost.home

Hardware hosts usually get a mix of hardware description and main use, e.g. en old Esprimo with Proxmox is esprimox. Virtual hosts are garden themed - auth server is mycel, monitoring will be called canopy once I move it, VM with lots of docker stuff is garden etc.

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

Naming my devices after stars. Specifically stars in Ursa-Major

Desktop: alioth Laptop: alkaid Smartphone: alcor SteamDeck: dubhe Server: sarir

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 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

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.