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B S Magnet

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Original poster
Viewing recent threads on posting obscure PPC Mac items and earliest-running boxes (which can pull up the MR forums), inspired this idea.

For some folks, a machine is simply named something prosaic like “PPC Tiger iBook” or “[name]’s iMac”, which is perfectly useful. For other folks here, maybe there’s a special naming-convention theme to your machine (like names of stars, names of characters from Game of Thrones or Star Trek).

If you find yourself in the latter camp, what do you use?

I’ll start:

From 2003, I began to name my machines after study disciplines and/or science-based disciplines, but in Italian. For instance, the clamshell in my avatar is named simbologia. The DLSD 17" PowerBook on which I’m drafting this post is deontologia.

Other names from past machines (including peripherals, iPod nanos, and phones) have featured similarly: codicologia (a laser printer), grammatologia (a phone with a physical keyboard), and musicologia (an iPod nano). Likewise, boot volumes for each of the computers have thematically been in keeping with the machine’s name. This DLSD’s boot volume is “ETICA” — Italian for “ethics”; the key lime iBook, meanwhile, is “PARADIGMATICO” (“paradigmatic”, and once a companion to another partition named “SINTAGMATICO”, or “syntagmatic”).

Lastly, my virtual Windows build (which I’ve moved from machine to machine over the years) is named dietrologia — literally, a study of the underworld and the culture of conspiracy theories arising therefrom (once upon a time, long before “FAANG” was an acronym, this name was supposed to poke ironic fun at Microsoft’s overbearing presence). :D

Whatchu got?
 

bjar

macrumors regular
Feb 20, 2013
232
105
Sugar land, tx
Viewing recent threads on posting obscure PPC Mac items and earliest-running boxes (which can pull up the MR forums), inspired this idea.

For some folks, a machine is simply named something prosaic like “PPC Tiger iBook” or “[name]’s iMac”, which is perfectly useful. For other folks here, maybe there’s a special naming-convention theme to your machine (like names of stars, names of characters from Game of Thrones or Star Trek).

If you find yourself in the latter camp, what do you use?

I’ll start:

From 2003, I began to name my machines after study disciplines and/or science-based disciplines, but in Italian. For instance, the clamshell in my avatar is named simbologia. The DLSD 17" PowerBook on which I’m drafting this post is deontologia.

Other names from past machines (including peripherals, iPod nanos, and phones) have featured similarly: codicologia (a laser printer), grammatologia (a phone with a physical keyboard), and musicologia (an iPod nano). Likewise, boot volumes for each of the computers have thematically been in keeping with the machine’s name. This DLSD’s boot volume is “ETICA” — Italian for “ethics”; the key lime iBook, meanwhile, is “PARADIGMATICO” (“paradigmatic”, and once a companion to another partition named “SINTAGMATICO”, or “syntagmatic”).

Lastly, my virtual Windows build (which I’ve moved from machine to machine over the years) is named dietrologia — literally, a study of the underworld and the culture of conspiracy theories arising therefrom (once upon a time, long before “FAANG” was an acronym, this name was supposed to poke ironic fun at Microsoft’s overbearing presence). :D

Whatchu got?
Ever since I named my kids iPad Elmo, all my other stuff is now Sesame Street characters :/
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,702
26,713
From 1999 (first job with a Mac) to late 2004 it was eMac.

After that, devices and computers started showing up and it was necessary to come up with something else.

Every computer is 'YoungrenX'. For instance, my Quad is Youngren14, my 17" PowerBook Youngren7, my 17" MBP is Youngren3, and so on. Only my server breaks the process and that's named YServ.

Harddrives, flash drives, RAM drives, phones, devices, etc are named slightly differently.

For instance, on Youngren14 (my Quad) I have YF14_SATA_2T. This is my boot drive and it tells me the following:

(Y)oungren
(F)ixed (i.e., a non-removable hard drive)
(14) The computer it's attached to (Youngren14)
(SATA) (the drive interface, this could be PATA, or RAID depending)
(2T) (the capacity of the drive)

Flash drives will start with YM (Youngren/Mobile), Ram drives with YV (Youngren/Volatile). Phones, such as my iPhone 6s+ are named such: YM12_iPh_128G (Youngren/Mobile/iPhone/128GB capacity).

Since devices such as iPhones and drives don't normally have a 'name' in the same way a computer does, this convention allows me to identify very easily what I want to connect to or have connected.

TenFourFox.png
 
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B S Magnet

Suspended
Original poster
From 1999 (first job with a Mac) to late 2004 it was eMac.

After that, devices and computers started showing up and it was necessary to come up with something else.

Every computer is 'YoungrenX'. For instance, my Quad is Youngren14, my 17" PowerBook Youngren7, my 17" MBP is Youngren3, and so on. Only my server breaks the process and that's named YServ.

Harddrives, flash drives, RAM drives, phones, devices, etc are named slightly differently.

For instance, on Youngren14 (my Quad) I have YF14_SATA_2T. This is my boot drive and it tells me the following:

(Y)oungren
(F)ixed (i.e., a non-removable hard drive)
(14) The computer it's attached to (Youngren14)
(SATA) (the drive interface, this could be PATA, or RAID depending)
(2T) (the capacity of the drive)

Flash drives will start with YM (Youngren/Mobile), Ram drives with YV (Youngren/Volatile). Phones, such as my iPhone 6s+ are named such: YM12_iPh_128G (Youngren/Mobile/iPhone/128GB capacity).

Since devices such as iPhones and drives don't normally have a 'name' in the same way a computer does, this convention allows me to identify very easily what I want to connect to or have connected.

The non-boot archives storage volumes attached to my G5 server (internally or externally) are their own naming convention of subway station names in Toronto, replete with matching button-pin icons. Currently there are four in use. I’m not exactly as literal about their specs, except that I know certain names have certain capacities and one, MIDLAND, is firewire-attached. :)

[p.s. addition: all my volumes across all devices are all-caps and single-word, which helps-with command-line stuff.]
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,702
26,713
The non-boot archives storage volumes attached to my G5 server (internally or externally) are their own naming convention of subway station names in Toronto, replete with matching button-pin icons. Currently there are four in use. I’m not exactly as literal about their specs, except that I know certain names have certain capacities and one, MIDLAND, is firewire-attached. :)

[p.s. addition: all my volumes across all devices are all-caps and single-word, which helps-with command-line stuff.]
Here's what WakeOnLAN sees. Note that the doubles in names are because I have some computers connected via both Ethernet ports or Ethernet AND WiFi.

WakeOnLan.png
 

B S Magnet

Suspended
Original poster
Here's what WakeOnLAN sees. Note that the doubles in names are because I have some computers connected via both Ethernet ports or Ethernet AND WiFi.

View attachment 879965

Ah, yeah. These days stuff inside here either runs from ethernet or wifi. Ethernet IPs are always preceded by a “1” in the last octal; standard wifi goes without. On two devices, secondary wifi (rarely used) gets preceded by a “2”.

That way, say, deontologia, my DLSD 17", can be either '192.168.168.24' (802.11n card), '192.168.168.124' (ethernet) or '192.168.168.224' (internal AirPort Extreme card, typically turned off).

This also means my first device to use this convention was a PowerBook G4/400 Ti back in 2005 (named anthropologia), which was assigned '192.168.168.11' and '192.168.168.111'.
 

Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,315
11,422
My computers have girl's names starting with an 'A'. I began naming them after characters in Disney's The Little Mermaid movies but once I had more than eight machines that was no longer sufficient, so I came up with other names starting with an 'A'.

Right now, I have:

iMac: Athena
MacBook Pro: Attina
MacBook: Arielle (Ariel's name is spelled that way in German)
1.33GHz 12" PowerBook: Aquata
867MHz 12" PowerBook: Alana
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook (1): Adella
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook (2): Andrina
500MHz TiBook: Anastasia
800MHz TiBook: Athanasia
867MHz TiBook: Antinea
Sony Vaio Pro: Arista
Toshiba Portégé R500: Anita

My smartphones deviate from this convention as I'm also into Irish girl's names; my main phone is named Caoimhe while my backup phone is named Siobhan.
 

galgot

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2015
483
892
I name them after movies/fictions characters .My main machine is Jack-Torrance.
My G4 MacMini file server is Philip-Mortimer. I have a iMac G5 named Walter-Sobchak...
Also have an clamshell iBook named Lucien-Cordier (try find who that is ... ;p ).
 

dwig

macrumors 6502a
Jan 4, 2015
902
444
Key West FL
My computers, since 1981, have all been named for sentient or semi-sentient AIs (computers, robots, software AIs, ...) from literature. In most cases, the names of large fixed location AIs/Computers have been used for "desktops" and mobile devices (sentient space ships, etc) have been used for my portable devices. There have been some exceptions to the latter rule with "Olivaw" used for a 486 desktop, "Agnes" used for a tablet, and several others.

"Accessories" that need names are much more randomly named, with most printers named for cartoon characters though there have been a number of exceptions (A black HP laser printer named "Darth") and storage drives named for the purpose or appearance (e.g. "Traveler" for a drive used to carry files back and forth between home and work). The mSD expansion card in "Agnes" is named "Elwood" for reasons that would be obvious to those who remember the Twilight Zone episode "From Agnes - with Love" starring Wally Cox.
 
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amagichnich

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2017
516
342
Stuttgart, Germany
I have a very different - and as I see now, uncreative - approach to my devices names. Usually: Machine type, followed by screen size, followed by cpu speed.
  • iBookG4 12 1.33
  • PowerBookG4 15 1.67
  • eMac 1.25
  • PowerBookG3 400
There are however some machines that get a very different naming scheme:
  • asus-pop-os
  • hp-windows
  • vm-wsus-2008
  • p3-ubuntu-8.04
External storage is "External I", "External II"... "External XXI"
Internal storage is named after it's operating system or it's function
 

B S Magnet

Suspended
Original poster
Ah, yeah. These days stuff inside here either runs from ethernet or wifi. Ethernet IPs are always preceded by a “1” in the last octal; standard wifi goes without. On two devices, secondary wifi (rarely used) gets preceded by a “2”.

That way, say, deontologia, my DLSD 17", can be either '192.168.168.24' (802.11n card), '192.168.168.124' (ethernet) or '192.168.168.224' (internal AirPort Extreme card, typically turned off).
I name them after movies/fictions characters .My main machine is Jack-Torrance.
My G4 MacMini file server is Philip-Mortimer. I have a iMac G5 named Walter-Sobchak...
Also have an clamshell iBook named Lucien-Cordier (try find who that is ... ;p ).

I burst out laughing upon reading “an iMac G5 named Walter-Sobchak…”

That’s the iMac which stays and finishes his coffee. :D
 

skottichan

macrumors 65816
Oct 23, 2007
1,083
1,264
Columbus, OH
My fandom stuff has always been my naming convention. Right now, Nier Automata is the theme.

iMac - Bunker
Time Machine/Network - YoRHa
iPad - A2
iPhone - 2B
Watch - 9S
 
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2984839

Cancelled
Apr 19, 2014
2,114
2,239
I've gone through a bunch of conventions.

For a while everything was named after J-class America's Cup yachts. I had Velsheda, Endeavour, Rainbow, Shamrock-V, etc.

Then it was materials they reminded me of. There was Obsidian (T480), Graphite (T470p), Titanium (TiBook, of course), Aluminum (aluminum PowerBook), Hydrogen (MacBook Air), etc.

I've done the boring machine name idea: t480, t470p, edgerouter4, etc.

The T5220 and T1000 servers are named Howler and Screamer for obvious reasons.
 

Slix

macrumors 65816
Mar 24, 2010
1,432
1,966
I use (big surprise!) Pokémon names for my older Macs. I don't generally name the ones I'm using as primary machines (my MacBook Air for example) the same way, but as a general rule, Pokémon names get assigned to Macs depending on their age, their color (type), and their lineage.

For example, some of the G4 towers:
- Machop (500 MHz AGP Power Mac G4 Graphite)
- Machoke (450 MHz DP Power Mac G4 Graphite)
- Machamp (1.25 GHz Power Mac G4 MDD)

Some G3s:
- Squirtle (333 MHz Tangerine iMac)
- Wartortle (400 MHz Blueberry iMac)
- Blastoise (300 MHz B&W G3)
- Abra (366 MHz iBook G3 Clamshell)
- Dratini (600 MHz Blue Dalmatian iMac)

Some PowerBooks:
- Magnemite (500 MHz Titanium G4)
- Magneton (800 MHz Titanium G4)
- Geodude (1.33 GHz Aluminum 12" G4)
- Aerodactyl (1.67 GHz Aluminum 15" G4)

There are way more than that, but here are some haha. I also have names for my different AirPort Expresses that play music (Delibird, Sneasel, Snorunt, Whismur) which are all white/Ice-type Pokémon. To be honest, even having the Mac Server that I've got (which is named Wonder Trade, a Pokémon worldwide trading service in some games), it's hard to get them all named. I have a bunch that haven't gotten official names yet simply because they never got set up fully or they aren't tied to the server. My iPods are named after food/fruit/desserts, mainly. It all started with our family iMac named GrapeApe, but that's another story. :p
 

z970

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2017
3,580
4,502
I use (big surprise!) Pokémon names for my older Macs. I don't generally name the ones I'm using as primary machines (my MacBook Air for example) the same way, but as a general rule, Pokémon names get assigned to Macs depending on their age, their color (type), and their lineage.

For example, some of the G4 towers:
- Machop (500 MHz AGP Power Mac G4 Graphite)
- Machoke (450 MHz DP Power Mac G4 Graphite)
- Machamp (1.25 GHz Power Mac G4 MDD)

Some G3s:
- Squirtle (333 MHz Tangerine iMac)
- Wartortle (400 MHz Blueberry iMac)
- Blastoise (300 MHz B&W G3)
- Abra (366 MHz iBook G3 Clamshell)
- Dratini (600 MHz Blue Dalmatian iMac)

Some PowerBooks:
- Magnemite (500 MHz Titanium G4)
- Magneton (800 MHz Titanium G4)
- Geodude (1.33 GHz Aluminum 12" G4)
- Aerodactyl (1.67 GHz Aluminum 15" G4)

There are way more than that, but here are some haha. I also have names for my different AirPort Expresses that play music (Delibird, Sneasel, Snorunt, Whismur) which are all white/Ice-type Pokémon. To be honest, even having the Mac Server that I've got (which is named Wonder Trade, a Pokémon worldwide trading service in some games), it's hard to get them all named. I have a bunch that haven't gotten official names yet simply because they never got set up fully or they aren't tied to the server. My iPods are named after food/fruit/desserts, mainly. It all started with our family iMac named GrapeApe, but that's another story. :p

One would think that they would have gone according to chronological regions...

Kanto - G3
Johto - G4
Hoenn - G4e
Sinnoh - G5

And so on... :p
 

Slix

macrumors 65816
Mar 24, 2010
1,432
1,966
One would think that they would have gone according to chronological regions...

Kanto - G3
Johto - G4
Hoenn - G4e
Sinnoh - G5

And so on... :p
You know, I've thought about that. :p I started this around the time Gen 7 was new, so my mentality was a little different then I guess. I also do have some early Intel Macs and as time goes on I’ll have newer ones than that too I assume so either way, there are plenty of names to choose from. :p
 
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z970

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2017
3,580
4,502
I think Gen 7 might be the last one I take part in. Their creature designs and naming schemes are really getting kind of uninspired. Which makes sense, because you can only keep imagining nonexistent animals for so long before getting mentally tired out.

So far we have: a chandelier, a sword and shield, a bowl of ice cream, and a blob with a nut on top. Of course, among the hundreds of others I'm forgetting...

Gen 4 is still my favorite. :)
 

Doq

macrumors 6502
Dec 8, 2019
444
694
The Lab DX
Physical machines in here are named after Azur Lane characters. The machine I'm typing this on (which is my power desktop) is named Takao. Unfortunately as I only have one G4 that was christened the name Enterprise, that's about all I have. They used to be after Nekopara characters but I've since run out of names and had to make the switch (I then subsequently used them for Takao's VMs).

Virtual machines are named based on a theme within a certain physical machine. Yuudachi's VMs are all named after Tales of characters, for example.

I also rely heavily on DNS for internal host referencing, and thus level the names as such. For example, my webserver is located at FQDN eizen.yuudachi.home.n.burneset.ga as it's on my network, in my home, on the machine Yuudachi, named Eizen. There's an emulated machine inside one of those VMs (not listed below), so it can get pretty ridiculous, but I don't mind.

Here's a small collection of others:
1575860627885.png

A bit I forgot to add was that before I standardised the wallpapers on all machines, the machines used a wallpaper that was the character represented by the name of the machine.
 
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lepidotós

macrumors 6502a
Aug 29, 2021
668
738
Marinette, Arizona
Necroing this thread to say that I don't have one single consistent system, I just name things (not just my Macs, either, I've been known to give pokémon the same level of thought) based on something adjacent to something notable about it.
Oddball is, well... weird. It's an AGP Graphics that came stock from the factory (according to the sticker) configured like a PCI Graphics -- 128MB RAM, 10GB hard drive, 8MB Rage 128... only things different are the Sawtooth logic board and the 50MHz speed bump, and the fact it confuses serial decoders the net over. Aleister Crowley was... well, an occultist, but that's close enough to a "mystic". Sequoyah worked with silver, and wasn't Paul Revere. For Parts Only was being sold on eBay as being, well, not much more than scrap due entirely to the seller not knowing the previous owner's password and the fact it was running Debian 6.0.6. Said previous owner named it debianMac.
Cloud Nine is pretty niney. A 900MHz iBook that usually runs Mac OS 9, and also it's a really, really nice Mac OS 9 computer at that. Donatello dNdBB worked with bronze. Henry Benbridge was a painter from Virginia and that laptop's main feature besides just being really, really fast is the high resolution display, and it came from Virginia Commonwealth University. Kennedy was, well... Kennedy. This (I'm typing on Kennedy right now) is the first Intel Mac I've ever owned, after previously swearing faithfulness to PowerPC and declaring I'd never buy another Intel product again. Whoops. That faithfulness ended up being about as long-lived as JFK's was.
My iBook G4 isn't named due to there being nothing interesting to latch onto about it, besides I guess the New Mexico flag I slapped onto it. I couldn't really think of any figures from history to name it, so my only idea was "Meep Meep" (or "Nana" back when I was considering naming them after the Ice Climbers -- Cloud Nine being "Popo"). The PowerBook G4 1.5GHz isn't named on account of being on loan to my mom while her main computer is buried in storage.​
 
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