Giving names to my devices
All my life, I've never given a thought to naming the devices that I've owned. They've always followed the same mundane naming pattern; "Jake's Phone" or "Jake's Laptop". My reasoning for following this pattern was to identify MY devices easily. But the same goal can be achieved by showing a bit of personality, and really make the devices part of you. After all, we (especially myself) spend the majority of our time connected to these devices, so why not bless them with their own unique names?
I was inspired by Robb Knight's article about how he named his devices after characters in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), which I liked the idea of and wanted to follow in a similar manner. I have recently read Stephen Fry's Mythos which is a retelling of Ancient Greek Myths. Leveraging the recency bias, I decided to name my devices after the Greek Gods and Goddesses, with some sort of connection to their names:
- Phone: Zeus (The main man of Olympus)
- Mobile Hotspot: Hermes (Messenger of the Gods)
- Smart Watch: Cronos (God of Time)
- Earphones: Apollo (God of Music)
- Laptop: Hera (Zeus' Wife, known for her power)
- Raspberry Pi: Atlas (Carried the world on his back)
- Gaming PC: Ares (God of War)
It seems that I'm not the only one who likes the idea of using the Greek Gods, as I seem to have unintentionally followed in Alex Chan's footsteps!
All of my devices are now connected in what you could call the JCU; Jake's Connected Universe. The one God which I wanted to use the name of but never found the right application is Hephaestus, the God of Fire and Metalworking, known for his craftsmanship. Hephaestus would be a good name for something like a 3D printer or drawing tablet, but I don't own any of those... yet.