The hostname returned from DHCP doesn't affect the computer name in Sharing. What causes the (2) and such to be appended is if mDNS finds a record for whatever

The hostname returned from DHCP doesn't affect the computer name in Sharing. What causes the (2) and such to be appended is if mDNS finds a record for whatever the computer's trying to use. I don't really have an idea for why this is happening for dhess since his laptop itself should be the only device responding to the mDNS query...