A desktop by any other name...

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By Zara Baxter
11:42 Feb 11, 2008

Having just bought a spiffy new machine, I wanted to name it. I name all my gadgets, from PDAs and phones through to laptops and desktops. I’m not alone in anthropomorphising my cybernetic companion. Fictional computer names run the gamut from unique and ingenious – Orac, Wintermute – through cybernetically inspired – Multivac, First Universal Cybernetic-Kinetic Ultra-micro Programmer, Hex – to suspiciously oedipal – Mother, Jane. Some even cover the bleeding obvious, such as The Engine, The Machine and, of course, Star Trek’s Computer.

It’s not just fictional computers that have awful names. Back when I was a lass, it seemed like every computer was named after wizards, characters from Lord of the Rings, famous swords or battles. Merlin, Glamdring and Gandalf pinged each other all day long in University computer labs the world over.

Faced with the underwhelming nominative creativity of early geeks, Don Libes put together RFC 1178: ‘Choosing a Name for Your Computer’. Among such common sense suggestions as “Don’t use antagonistic or otherwise embarrassing names” and “Don’t use your own name”, Libes recommends that you use themed names.

There’s an idea that I can get behind, but because I wanted to be a bit more interesting than naming my computers Galadriel, Arwen and Thorin, my desktops are named after characters in Iain M Bank’s science fictional ‘Culture’ novels.

The Culture is a future where the leftist socialist anarchists won, which sets it apart from the usual Heinleinian right-wing militaristic futures that science fiction seems to specialise in. The Culture features massive interstellar ships (more accurately, Minds, since they are vast Artificial Intelligences) that are politically astute, manipulative, and have their own agenda, and are frequently entangled in the plot of the novels. These spaceships have suitably impressive names, such as “No More Mr Nice Guy”, “Frank Exchange Of Views”, “I Thought He Was With You”, “Just Another Victim Of The Ambient Morality” and “Charming But Irrational”.

If you think that powerful AIs in the form of immense warships should have names that are a bit less silly, you’re not alone. At some time in the past, another advanced civilization came into contact with the Culture, and having seen what the ships named themselves, suggested that such powerful vessels ought to have names with a little more gravitas.

The ships took this reproach very seriously. In an early Banks novel, Use of Weapons, there’s a ship named “Very Little Gravitas Indeed”, later on, in Excession, “Zero Gravitas” appears, and later again, we find “Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall” in Look to Windward. Banks suggested, in an interview with UK newspaper The Guardian, that there are More Where That Came From.

I’d name my computers after Culture ships, but sadly Windows limits me to 15 characters. So I took the next best option and named my computers after Banks’ characters.

My new system, since it’s a speedy build designed to run Crysis at Very High settings is now named Gurgeh after the lead character in Bank’s novel The Player of Games. Obviously.

But that brings us to the grandfather’s sword problem. Long ago, your great-great-great-to-the-umpty grandfather won a mighty sword in battle, and it’s still in the family. Of course, it had the hilt knocked off in an accident in the 1600’s, so that was replaced by the swishy wire one. And there was a ding in the original Damascus steel, so it’s now Sheffield’s best. And the wrapping on the hilt gets changed every twenty years, and someone nicked the ruby...

But it’s still grandfather’s sword, handed down for 17 generations.

Just like your computer is the same one, no matter how much you upgrade it. Even when you stripped everything out of the case, rebuild from the ground up… and then six months later replaced the case. How much of my computer can I upgrade before it’s time to give it a new name? I could side with Microsoft and rename it after six or more major hardware changes. But here’s where my clever computer naming theme kicks in. Banks’ characters have six names each, meaning I can do a few switcheroos while still maintaining the illusion that it’s the
same system.

At least laptops are easier in that regard. Harder to upgrade, for starters, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to keep the same case throughout. My laptops have their own naming scheme, I should point out. Each iBook or MacBook I own is a small white rounded thing that keeps me happy and reduces the pain of being away from my desktop. I’ve called them Aspirin, Placebo, Zoloft and Prozac. I’m going to be upgrading in February, and I’m already considering the new name – Advil? Panadol? Ecstasy? Suggestions are welcome.

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