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An Apple by any other name (2024 edition)

15 years ago I wrote about the names I give to devices I plug into my Mac:

Macintosh has been associated with Apple since the launch of its original all-in-one computer in 1984, reportedly named after the pocket-sized McIntosh apple cultivar. So when it comes to providing names for the external devices I plug into my Mac (backup drives, iPods and my iPhone for example) it seemed like a good idea to follow this convention.

Recently, Manton Reece shared the names given to Micro.blog’s servers:

I like having a theme for naming computers. For the last dozen years, all of my personal computers and hard drives have been named for characters in Hayao Miyazaki films. For servers, I’ve used Disney train-related names.

Leon Mika followed up Manton’s post with his naming scheme:

…after buying a new desktop and setting up the old one to be a home server, and finding that I need a way to name them, I figured now was the time for a naming scheme. Being a fan of A Game of Thrones, both the book and the TV series, I’ve came up with one based on the major houses of Westeros.

With it being so long since my original post, I thought it’d be fun to share an updated list of device names, with these still picked from the names of apple cultivars:

From memory, these are some other device names I’ve used:

For the sake of completeness, my home’s WiFi network is called Hyperion, named after the Greek god of heavenly light. This was an appropriate choice having finally connected to a super-fast fibre optic network (thanks to the equally heavenly team over at Brighton Fibre).

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