Server name contest: Runner-ups

Here are other stories that made our list of finalists. You can also see all the entries.

JeffreyR. Drumm
One way Traffic

Apologies for the slightly scatalogical humor, but the name of the server fit quite well with it's function. And, after all, I do work in a hospital, so such terminology is commonplace.

Server function: Corporate Firewall
Server Name: Sphincter

Kit Ruparel
True to life...

My servers have been named:
FALLOVER DOWNTIME CORRUPT DISREPAIR KNACKERED RUINED

... perhaps I should have bought Dell's ;)

Bliss Bailey

At Auburn University, central services are provided by the Division of University Computing, known as DUC (pronounced "duck"). Hence, our servers have names including:

mallard.duc.auburn.edu teal.duc.auburn.edu peking.duc.auburn.edu daffy.duc.auburn.edu widgeon.duc.auburn.edu darkwing.duc.auburn.edu rubber.duc.auburn.edu merganser.duc.auburn.edu pintail.duc.auburn.edu donald.duc.auburn.edu dead.duc.auburn.edu lame.duc.auburn.edu cold.duc.auburn.edu gadwall.duc.auburn.edu disco.duc.auburn.edu

Robert Bourne

When I built my first server using Novell 3.1, I chose an acronym for it's name - FRED. It stands for F__king Rediculous Electronic Device. When the second server became necessary we put the name to a popular vote. The users number 1 response was Wilma. Thus Fred and Wilma ran our network for the next 2 years.

Randall Perry

Not only are our servers named, but we have robot welders that are named. The servers start with a number assigned to them until the "personality" of that machine surfaces. How that machine acts is what determines its name. The old IBM320 PC Server (90Mhz-junk)I rebuilt and made it an NT BDC. That machine ended up with the name Bea Arthur because it is old, slow and is not pleasing to the eye. (it also is not easy to turn-on)

Matthew Sabin
I named it...

...after Crayons. I needed a naming convention which wouldn't offend anyone and be easy for users to remember/identify with. Crayola makes paint, so I dropped by my local paint store and picked up all of the Crayola paint samples. We allow users in the department who will be using the server choose their favorite color from the swatch book.

Mark Zuroff

At a 'former' employer, whose overall management style seemed to trickle down to the hardware itself... Disorder, Pandemonium, Discord, Turmoil, and of course Chaos (which was later replaced by SonOfChaos)

Kelvin Burton

As we are an international organization with land and ship based servers, we name our servers after cities or countries. The original choices were made by throwing darts at a world map!

Our only rules now are that it must be a new country and the server must NOT reside in that country!

Our latest is burma and it's located in South Korea.

John Jobst
Thunder & Lightning

Namergon is the Australian aboriginal god of lightning. Inhabiting the sky, he strikes his stone axes together to cause enormous sparks to fly. My first web server was Namergon.

Pallieter Koopmans
The Newbie Fun Days...

OK, when we had to move our offices, we had to wait 10 days before our servers and terminals to arrive and be setup by our admin. As Mark Downing was about to retire and knew there where two newbies coming in to replace him he did all kinds of things to confuse the hell out of them (can't even start about the reprogramming of the wireless devices...) ok, so the server names had to change too (they where boringly named after the person behind the desk it was on or near). So DizzyDoug (the mailserver) became FireWall, the inbound firewall is now called Router33, the outbound firewall now likes to be addressed as PrintSrv, the printserver is now called FileServ and the two local routers are Fire2Wal and Fire1Wa1 (watch out with mistyping the last one). The network backup server is now called Mirror02 and the RAID of her is Mirror01. Now I can advise you to NEVER try something like that ... why you ask ? Well, any name you give it you will have to remeber, right, but the network technician that came in about two months ago to upgrade our network did not know... Heh, he was probably thinking: this is handy... Until he found out and had to relocate two routers and switch alot of cables around !

Chris Griffiths

As a fairly traditional open systems organisation the move to NT servers was cause of some dismay to a few of the more biased techies. When these servers suffered teething problems there was a cry of "Unix, we told ya". Our newest server was thus named UNIX and seems much more reliable, It may be because it was adequately sized but could be the name!

Herb Hamby

My friend Mark and I were responsible for doing server gens. We decided early on that despite pressures to name them after the area they were going to (ever hear of Budget becoming Finance etc.) we would name them after people. Our first server was named in honor of our 'Y' aerobics instructor Wendy. We followed with Rita, Rosie and on up to 45 servers. Later when we moved to a collapsed backbone and enterprise servers we were going to have 8 new servers. So they became Snowhite and all of the dwarves. Later more cartoon characters appeared. The one I really like the best was a server I had to set up 'special' for LAN Administration training. I decided this one wasn't going to get used anywhere else so I named it Beelzebub. Nice long name no one would want to key in. I got a call from my manager shortly after the training started. I had offended the religious sensibilities of one of the participants. Change pronto. I think I renamed it George. But the really good part was this person never knew the segment address for this machine was '666'. So you see, as you've heard, the Devil really is in the details.

DL Tate
Texas wildflowers

We are a school district in Texas. Server names were chosen to NOT inspire a macho desire to hack into them for the glory: what's cool about hacking into 'buttercup'?? Server names can also now be an educational moment in elementary classes. I kid you not. All Netware servers are named after common Texas wildflowers. NT server names are 'in discussion' at the moment.

Rob Wardman
By any other name

Most of our servers have names that reflect their function or location. However, a few years back we got 2 DEC Alpha 4000's in that were configured into a cluster known as COSMOS. We held a naming contest with LBRAIN and RBRAIN becoming the individual names. Then, we got in a DEC Alpha 2000 that we just had to name MEDULLA. We also have a DEC VAXStation 4000 that the users in our organization refer to as WIZARD, but we in IT know it's true name... PBRAIN

Steve Bosch

Animal House Character References for the physical servers: D-Day, Otter, Pinto, Bluto...

Andy Griffith Show Character References for the database server engines: Barney, Floyd, Andy, Aunt-Bea...

Why... It drives upper management crazy! Especially when you send out a message announcing that Floyd and Andy will be unavailable, or D-Day and Otter are down for Maintenance *GRIN*

Darrell Mockus
Naming servers for revenge/motivation

Over the years at various silicon valley companies I've had the pleasure of naming a number of machines.

We've named machines after the cast of Dilbert such as Dogbert, Wally, Dilbert, etc. I've used cars for when I have a large number of machines to name. The Gremlin machine constantly was crashing, the Pinto machine was named after it literally caught fire. Our high end Sun's were all named after world class sports cars such as Shelby and Ferrari.

The worst names have been the girls in the office. It was always bad when an engineer screams across the dept that Diane is going down in 2 minutes. Or that too many people are on Michelle and they want to get on. Or Tara has a heavy load on her.

But most recently, a collegue and I, fed up with the people we have had to work for, started our own company and are naming all of our machines after the nut-case CEO's and others we have worked for/with. We consider it the motivation every time we see their names to make the new venture work. Plus its always great when you can just shut off ________ because they are P*$$ing your off.

Chester Rieman

We have loaded Windows 2000 Beta 3 on a couple servers. Since these are test servers for feeling out what win2000 is all about, and we couldn't call them "Guinea Pig" we used other rodent names following our company initials, hence we now have SNLHAMPSTER and SNLGERBIL. We also named a server that resides in New Jersey, SNLHOFFA (I won't comment on that one!)

Sonia Dyer

I named my crash-and-burn server Hindenberg, after the dirigible that burned and crashed. It fits.

John Cassero
80's Bands

Our Fileserver (WinNT Server 4.0) is called 'DEVO' because we often have to 'Whip It Good'. A stand-alone server that keeps crashing is aptly named 'Flockogulls' because we often sing 'And I ran, I ran so far away. I just ran, I ran all night and day. I couldn't get away". Lastly, a mail server (Exchange 5.0) is named 'ModernEnglish' because we sometimes wish we could burn it whilst singing, 'I'll stop the world and melt with you'.

Jim Swalley
Returned from the dead...

I recently helped set up a lab full of servers for testing purposes. Their names weren't anything special, but they had one old ProLiant 1000 sitting under a bench that hadn't been working for over three years and was missing a hard drive (from a RAID 5 array, no less). I was asked to see if I could do anything with it. After chasing down parts, a monitor, keyboard, and whatnot, I finally got it running! I named it Lazarus. It seemed fitting.

Lori Kingery
cer-endipitous

Our old Banyan network, with servers set up by different teams, had unmatching names like Aardvark, Lotsaluck, Venus, etc. At one point the organization above us decided we now had to prepend our organization designation (CER) to all new servers, so they would show up in the "right" place on a global list. Most people were inclined to make it simple, like CER-Aardwolf, but a coworker and I decided to get cute. We mulled over things like CER-ebral, CER-tain, CER-tified, CER-vix, CER-aphim, CER-f, CER-pent, CER-vant, etc. Decided on CER-ver for one machine...HUGE mistake. Which server? CER-ver!! Ack. Another machine, which was a dual SCO & Banyan box, where you could actually read your (GUI) Banyan mail as an ASCII application under Unix (!), I dubbed "CER-real."

Justin Fidler
Clinton's women

Our offices are located in Washington, DC, about 3 blocks from the White House. As a result, people here have, for instance, seen Monica Lewinsky strolling around. We have a set of servers named after Clinton's "liaisons":

monica (lewinsky)
kathleen (willey)
gennifer (flowers)
paula (jones)
juanita (broderick)
tripp (linda tripp -- though he didn't do anything with her)

another set is named after female recording artists:
tori (amos)
bjork
djrap (http://www.djrap.com/ -- a female DJ from the UK)enya
dixiechick (the dixie chicks)

and finally, one server named "prego" becuase it's go so many peripherals on it, that you've got to assume "it's in there"

Scott Nepper
That sinking feeling Z

When I went into the head purchasing office to get the funding for our new dual processor 333 MHZ Pentium II machine with 4 10,000 RPM 9.2 Gig SCSI hard drives in a raid array and a nice HP 24 gig DAT tape backup drive, The head of the purchasing department looked at me and said, "It better not go down, EVER!"

I replied, "No problem, we will be running Windows NT 5.0" You should have seen the look on his face when he logged onto the new server and found out I had christened it "TITANIC." Of course with a name like that, you need a Backup Domain Controller called "Carpathia."

Ed Palmer

When we set up our Y2K testing lab, everyone was REALLY thrilled about the amount of work that would be required for Y2K testing. (NOT!) Rather than follow our corporate policy of using names of moons, they decided to name the test servers after diseases and viruses! We now have HIV, Rubella, Smallpox, and Ebola. Gives a whole new meaning to the idea of virus scanning!

Rick Van Luvender

Our NT Server that forces compliance policies on the users is named

IRONFIST...

Jeff Phillips

It is our management's policy to have "Logical" server names on the WAN. That why we have server names like BAR_NA_KED which of course stands for Brown And Root _ North America KEy Directory server. Local Novell server names; password, error, what and something. The help desk tickets are always interesting.... Hello I can't log into something, no not what, it's something that I can not log into.

We have 100+ print servers at this site alone... the names went from OK to funny and are now just "odd" a few of which are; free_press, inky, mornig_news and de_energizer.

Some of the many exchange servers; e_snail_mail, pony_express, half_baked_lightning, anti_flash, black_hole and vaporizer.

Gerald Zuckier

We have Larry, Curly, and Moe; Howard; Harpo, Zeppo, and Chico; and Darla. The new trend, however, is to give them nice easy to remember names like 8Z4P2. (My desktop machine is names Princess Di, because it crashes and dies).

Rob Root

Our server names are a mongrel lot. The first round were named by engineering wanks who don't get out much.

meson
quark
lepton
muon

The next round were named

after single-named entertainers:

prince
cher
kramer (not quite right, but the main user was having a bad day so I threw him a bone).
elvis
meatloaf

Seeing the last entry our software group demanded that since we had meatloaf we must have:

gravy

The hardware engineers replied that if we have gravy we need a condiment, so now we have:

mustard

Francis Mogavero Jr.

Two years ago I was consulting at a medical software company. I was required to order and set up a new Netware server. For $10,000 I needed a bigger faster better machine and an operating system upgrade. I thought to myself, "This is gonna be nasty." When I finally had the server and was going to install Intranetware, I found out that the company was going to be aquired by another company.

As the only Netware/NT admin, I was putting this server onto a LAN that was controlled by the current parent company. This server was like one little fish swimming in a big sea.

Since I speak, read and write in Italian, I decided to name the server Baccola. Baccola are the ugliest, nastiest, stinkiest fish that Italians use to cook with. Just for good measure I assigned the internal network number as bacc01a.

Hank Nussbacher

We (IBM Israel) maintains a managed firewall for customers. The router that connects the customers is called viagra (viagra.tlv.ibm.net.il), and the firewall itself is called durex (durex.ibm.net.il).

Tom Lee

Our servers take their names from the happy land of Camelot, which is our NT domain. Of course Arthur is the PDC, and we also have Merlin, Lancelot, Mab, and Knight. We extend the theme to workstations, where you'll find Guinevere, Galahad, Owain, and many others. Lancelot is out of jousting distance from Arthur, and Guinevere is far away from both - just in case.

Caution: Don't read any more if you're easily offended!

Rodgers Moore
Dueling brothers

A few years ago I was a contracted to administer and install new servers and workstations at 4 companies all owned by three brothers. Each brother was President of different company with the oldest, President of two of them. I had been told it was difficult to work with these three as one couldn't tell the difference between Board Meetings and westling matches. They fought a lot and with fists not words. Their names were Bob, David, and Richard(the oldest). David is who contracted me for the work. I started work at David's company... Bob stopped in and told me to name the server "Davegiveshead". I explained that name was too long... "ok, just make it Daveblows". Against my better judgement, I did. A week later I had finished at Dave's and moved on to Bob's company. An angry Dave met me there and told me to get my f'ing ass over to his office and change the server's name NOW. Oh, and by the way, change this one to "Bobisgay". You can guess what happens for the next few days. Lucky for me the two companies were only two miles apart. I finish up at Bob's and go to one of Richard's companies. Both Bob and Dave dropped by separately to instruct me to name the server "Dickless" and "Limpdick" (apparently these nicknames were childhood favorites of Richard's :^). Luckily for me, there were two servers for Richard's two companies. Richard never said a word, but then, he wouldn't use a computer either.

Anyway, the servers ended up named: Prick, Header, Dickless, and LimpDick.

If you are curious how old these infantile boys were; the youngest (Bob) was 42.

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