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:
- Macintosh remains the name of my internal drive; removing the HD makes even more sense given the internal drive is flash based, these days.
- Cameo is also still the name of my internal back-up drive. It’s a different model to the one I mentioned in 2009 though; I briefly considered naming it Cameo II, but that felt untidy.
- Envy is the name I chose for my 16-inch MacBook Pro; in 2021 this was the long rumoured and long awaited for ARM-based model, so having got my hands on one, Envy seemed appropriate.
- Orin is the name used for my iPhone 11 Pro; I have no idea why I choose this name, but I like that it’s short.
From memory, these are some other device names I’ve used:
- Kanzi was the name given to my 15.4-inch MacBook Pro
- Åkerö was the name given to my iPhone 6S
- Cortland and Jonagold were also names I recall using, but can’t remember which devices I used them with.
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).