Hostname Naming Scheme

Hostname Naming Scheme

Rules

The split is by what you own, not by where the thing runs. Hardware you can touch gets the solar system, and the hierarchy is real - a VM’s name tells you which box it is on. Rented compute gets chemistry, because it is fungible and the suffix can carry the role instead. Software you write gets exoplanets, in 004-software-names.

Relationship	Layer	Theme	Example
Own	Physical machines	Solar system planets	mars
Own	VMs / Containers	Moons of parent planet	phobos (on mars)
Rent	Cloud instances	Atmospheric / Noble gases	argon, argonite
Make	Software	Exoplanet proper names	poltergeist

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Physical Machines - Planets

Hostname	Body	Notes
mercury	Mercury	No moons - standalone only
venus	Venus	No moons - standalone only
earth	Earth	1 moon
mars	Mars	2 moons
jupiter	Jupiter	95 moons - current main machine
saturn	Saturn	292 moons
uranus	Uranus	27 moons
neptune	Neptune	16 moons

Mercury and Venus have no moons. Avoid assigning VMs to them, or use them for truly isolated machines.

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VMs / Containers - Moons (by parent planet)

Earth

Hostname	Moon
luna	Moon

Mars

Hostname	Moon	Notes
phobos	Phobos	Larger, inner
deimos	Deimos	Smaller, outer

Jupiter ← main machine

Hostname	Moon	Notes
ganymede	Ganymede	Largest moon in solar system
callisto	Callisto	2nd largest Jovian
io	Io	Most volcanically active body
europa	Europa	Subsurface ocean candidate
amalthea	Amalthea	5th largest Jovian
thebe	Thebe
metis	Metis	Innermost named moon
himalia	Himalia	Largest irregular moon
elara	Elara
pasiphae	Pasiphae
carme	Carme
ananke	Ananke
leda	Leda	Smallest named Jovian

Saturn

Hostname	Moon	Notes
titan	Titan	2nd largest moon in solar system, has atmosphere
rhea	Rhea	2nd largest Saturnian
iapetus	Iapetus	Two-tone surface
dione	Dione
tethys	Tethys
enceladus	Enceladus	Active ice geysers
mimas	Mimas	Death Star appearance
hyperion	Hyperion	Irregular shape
phoebe	Phoebe	Likely captured body
janus	Janus	Co-orbital with Epimetheus
epimetheus	Epimetheus	Co-orbital with Janus
prometheus	Prometheus	Shepherd moon
pandora	Pandora	Shepherd moon
atlas	Atlas	Ring shepherd
pan	Pan	Gap-clearing moon
helene	Helene	Trojan moon of Dione
calypso	Calypso	Trojan moon of Tethys

Uranus

Hostname	Moon	Notes
titania	Titania	Largest Uranian moon
oberon	Oberon	2nd largest
umbriel	Umbriel
ariel	Ariel
miranda	Miranda	Extreme terrain
puck	Puck
portia	Portia
juliet	Juliet
caliban	Caliban	Irregular
sycorax	Sycorax	Largest irregular Uranian

Uranian moons are named from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.

Neptune

Hostname	Moon	Notes
triton	Triton	Retrograde orbit, likely captured KBO
proteus	Proteus	2nd largest Neptunian
nereid	Nereid	Highly eccentric orbit
larissa	Larissa
galatea	Galatea	Shepherd moon
despina	Despina
thalassa	Thalassa
naiad	Naiad	Innermost named moon

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Cloud Instances - Atmospheric Gases

Suffix Reference

Combine any noble gas base with a suffix to encode role/tier/purpose. Or use base for network and suffixed for resources in that network. Or do whatever, I don’t care.

Suffix	Chemical meaning	Suggested infra meaning
(bare)	Element itself	Primary / generic instance
-ide	Binary compound - element bonded to one other	Paired instance, replica, read-replica, standby
-ite	Salt of lower-oxidation acid	Secondary role, worker, lighter variant
-ate	Salt of higher-oxidation acid	Elevated role, primary in cluster, ingress
-ous	Lower-oxidation acid form	Legacy, deprecated, older-gen
-ic	Higher-oxidation acid form	High-priority, production-grade
-yl	Functional group / radical	Sidecar, agent, auxiliary process
-ane	Saturated stable compound	Long-running, persistent, stateful
-ene	Unsaturated / reactive compound	Ephemeral, short-lived, CI runner
-one	Ketone group	Singleton, sole instance of type
-ol	Hydroxyl / alcohol group	Observability, monitoring, logging node
-al	Aldehyde group	Batch job, scheduled task node

Noble Gas Bases

Prefer noble gases - chemically inert, maps well to stateless cloud instances.

Base	Element	Weight	Use suggestion
helium	He	Lightest	Tiny/nano instances, lambdas
neon	Ne	Light	Edge nodes, CDN, lightweight
argon	Ar	Medium	General compute
krypton	Kr	Heavy	Memory-heavy workloads
xenon	Xe	Heaviest stable	GPU, high-compute
radon	Rn	Heaviest	Avoid - radioactive connotation

Construction Pattern

<noble-gas><suffix>[-<number>]

Examples (do not treat this as some sort of standard):

Hostname	Decode
argon	Primary general compute instance
argonide	Standby / replica of argon
argonite	Worker node
argonate	Ingress / primary in cluster
argonene	Ephemeral CI runner
argonol	Monitoring / observability node
xenone	Ephemeral GPU job runner
kryptonane	Persistent stateful DB host
neonyl	Sidecar / agent
argonite-1	First of multiple workers
argonite-2	Second worker

Non-noble gases (available if needed)

Base	Gas	Notes
nitrogen	N₂	High-availability, abundant
oxygen	O₂	Active/compute-heavy
hydrogen	H₂	Lightest - micro/serverless
methane	CH₄	Outer-layer / edge
ozone	O₃	Security layer, WAF, proxy
carbon	C	Data/storage nodes

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Example Fleet

jupiter          # main physical workstation
  ├── io         # VM - small, hot
  ├── europa     # VM - medium
  ├── ganymede   # VM - largest
  └── callisto   # VM - secondary large

mars             # secondary physical machine
  ├── phobos     # VM
  └── deimos     # VM

argon            # primary OCI compute
argonide         # OCI standby/replica
argonene         # ephemeral CI runner
xenone           # ephemeral GPU job
kryptonane       # persistent stateful DB
argonol          # monitoring node
neonyl           # sidecar agent

Where software fits

Software you write gets an exoplanet name - see 004-software-names. The two schemes do not overlap: the exoplanet name is the thing in the repo, and the gas name is a place it is running. That keeps a sentence like “poltergeist is down on argonite-2, so requests cannot get to callisto” readable with exactly one meaning.

Third-party services keep their real names (postgres, caddy, forgejo). Only things you actually build get named.