Homelab Naming Methodology

This repo holds a talk + slide deck about one oddly important topic: what you name your homelab boxes and services.

Yes, it’s “just names.” Also: bad names are how you end up with server2_final_rebuild three years later and no idea what it does.

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What's included here

• A PPTX that walks through different naming styles:
  • Default (Sam's iPhone)
  • Hardware‑based (RPi1, ThinkStation4)
  • Purpose‑based (backup01, docker-host3)
  • Creative / Themed (Naming after gods, eg. Odin, Thor, naming after birds, eg. Canary, Common Loon, etc.)
• Some surface-level psychology on why naming things makes you more likely to maintain them.
• A gentle reminder that enterprise naming schemes are great… for enterprises, not necessarily your one‑rack closet or collection of raspberry pis.

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What I learned

• Names are anchors: once you name something, you care a bit more about it and are more likely to keep it alive.
• Enterprise naming is brilliant for teams and auditors, but feels like overkill when it’s just you and three nodes pretending to be a data center.
• Fun/themed names are great, you need to document what they actually do.
• Splitting it into:
  • Device name (fun / personal)
  • Service name (boring, descriptive DNS) seems to be the sweet spot.

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The actual conclusion

There is no One True Naming Scheme.

The best option is whatever:

• You’ll actually stick with, and
• Won’t make you swear at yourself six months from now when you’re remoting into something at 1 AM.

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Files

• Homelab-Naming-Ideology.pptx – the slides.
• resources.md – articles, forum threads, and references that fed into this.

Attribution

If you steal any of this for your own lab or your own talk, that’s a feature, not a bug. Just give me some credit and we're good. View the repo and any additional information here: https://github.com/SamPlaysKeys/Naming-Methodologies/

License <-- Legal Stuff

Naming Methodologies © 2026 by Sam Fleming is licensed under CC BY 4.0