The large companies I worked with typically use a combination of one or more of the following on the server names: - abbreviated physical location (city/stat

The large companies I worked with typically use a combination of one or more of the following on the server names: - abbreviated physical location (city/state/data center,availability zone/country) - abbreviated environment (demo/test/dev/prod), - server role (db/app/web) - sequential number/letter Examples: ATLWEB301 (Atlanta Web 301) DEMOVA050 (Demo Virginia 050) NYCDB015 (New York City Database 015) The standards vary significantly, specially depending if you are talking about internal / public servers. The length also varies but most people try to stay below 15 a-z characters. I personally like to give servers more generic names and not have to worry too much about it. Ex: ATLDEMO001, DENPROD014... If the servers are public (I mean accessible via internet) most companies refrain from using any information on the server name that could facilitate a potential attack. For example: putting DB on the name of a database server. Small companies, on the other hand, have a lot more variety. I have worked on servers named after Lord of the Rings and Simpson characters, Greek mythology gods, etc... I had a frodo mysql server that gave me a lot of trouble.