Computer Name Generator

Computer names do double duty: they identify a machine on the network and they give it a bit of personality. Sysadmins have used themed naming schemes for decades because a set of names from one family (planets, Greek letters, chemical elements, Norse gods, sci-fi starships) is easy to extend as you add machines and easy to remember when you are typing ssh at 2 a.m. RFC 1178 — the 1990 guide 'Choosing a Name for Your Computer' — still holds up: prefer short, distinctive names, avoid names tied to a role you might change (a laptop named 'mailserver' will outlive that job), and stay away from anything that will be embarrassing in a log file.

Technically, a hostname should stick to lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens, be 63 characters or fewer per label, and not start or end with a hyphen. That is why most names here are lowercase single words; combine one with a numeric suffix (vega-01, nas-02) once you have several machines of the same type.

For personal machines, the fun themes take over. Home labs love Norse mythology and space probes; developers name laptops after computer scientists (turing, hopper, lovelace); gamers go for battlestation or the-beast; and plenty of people just name a slow old desktop potato and move on. Pick a family, use it consistently, and you will never lose track of which box is which.