Hi fellow selfhosters!
What hostnames do you use for your systems and services?
And maybe why if it’s an interesting story.
I’ll start:
Steam Deck: krax
Smartphone: krix (once I get LineageOS installed again)
MiniPC: krux
Reserved for future use: krex & krox
Creative, I know. 😅 The names have no deeper meaning. The x comes from Linux. That’s it.
I know some of you use god names of certain pantheons, such as Thor. But I find that boring as a lot of people are doing that.
Now let your pants down and tell me all about
your embarrassing host names!
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
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?
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.comI’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.
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
rpi5-1and the new onerpi5-2.
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!
Sounds like a good option for a VPS.
Fedora is called fed. Ubuntu is ubu. Laptop is laptop 🌝
Naming scheme like John Wick with his dog.

What happens if you decide to use Fedora or Ubuntu on two devices?
The printer’s name is Marvin, from HHGTTG.
It never wants to work and always complains.
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 - management, monitoring
- Douglas - vm - Home Assistant stack
- Basement - vm - development server
Thats awesome
Desktop: HAL9000
laptop: HALjr
Phone: HALnano
Then HALserver, HALprinter (octoprint), HALhome (home assistant) and so on… Big fan of Stanley Kubrick haha
Tried to get the hal9.ooo domain name but it was taken…
Edit: I use Dave as the username, so that in the terminal it is dave@hal9000, which just seems appropriate
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.
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-webI swear I’m not a narcissist.
Nah, just a huge fan of barley tea.
I am a simple person.
My PC: Panda
My wifes PC: notpanda
Docker VM: dockerhost.homeI’ve always done characters from Beatles songs
- Walrus
- Martha
- Her-Majesty
- Submarine
- MissLizzy
- Blackbird
- NowhereMan
- SgtPepper
- Jojo
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.
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.
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







