Naming Things Is Hard
This is why programmers love codenames. Codenames are awesome. Apple uses them. Microsoft uses them. All the cool kids use them.
There’s Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich for your Android phone and your Windows 8 was called Metro.
We’ve all been there. We start creating something, so we come up with a somewhat relevant name. We start building it. Eventually we become dissatisfied with the name, and get distracted thinking about a more appropriate name, or a catchy name, or a name with an available .com domain.
Now you’ve named it, and you need to go and get the .com domain, and it’s taken. Or your team doesn’t like the name anymore. There’s a million reasons you may want to change the name. Then you do. Now you’ve got a bunch of references to an old name. Hopefully just filenames, but it could be code too. That may even end up being called “deprecated”, “old” or “legacy”.
“There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.” — Phil Karlton
The system I’ve come up with is:
- Brain turns on, cool idea pops in
- Put it down as a ? question mark, with the name I want front-facing for now
- Check Codenames document
- Figure out which category it fits into: App, Game, Tool, Library, Company.
- Find a section for that category. Each section is a group of titles from something, it could be from greek mythology, roman gods, constellations, your grandma’s cats, it doesn’t matter too much!
- Create the project folder in my user directory
- Start creating!
“To do unreasonable things, you need to be unreasonable” — Nate Khehra
When I’ve found a group of titles I want to use for codenames, I just add them to the document for later :)
A nice side-effect is I can learn and memorize the meanings of these names!
Here’s my list to get you started (with some examples).
Godspeed,
Eric
Planning
- ? -> World of Warcraft (Game)
- ? -> Single Face Studios (Company) — Standing up against being a two faced person
- ? -> StokeGames.com (Site)
Codenames
Constellation — Games
- Maea — Hackatron V2 (Unity)
- Alcyone — HackatronV1 (Phaser)
- Asterope — World of Warcraft
- Celaeno — zombies
- Taygete — company culture
- Sterope — ARC FPS
- Electra — Trippy Tetra Tiles
- Merope — Warcraft Arena
Olympians — Games
- Artemis — RPG
- Zeus
- Poseidon
- Hermes
- Eos — Japan scroller
- Leto
- Hades
- Hestia
- Hera
- Ares
- Athena
- Apollo
- Aphrodite
- Hephaestus
- Uranus
- Chronus
- Rhea
- Oceanus
- Tethys
- Hyperion
- Mnemosyne
- Themis
- Iapetus
- Coeus
- Crius
- Phoebe
- Thea
- Prometheus — Connecting.live
- Epimetheus
- Atlas — Zelda america sentiment
- Metis
Islands — ?
- Delos
- Krete
Kings — ?
- Hyrieus
- Oculus — Bridging Adaptive to Desktop
- Windforce -
- Shaco
- Horadic
- Azurewrath
- Kuko
D2 NPCs — Services
- Flavie
- Tyrael
- Izual
- Hadriel
- Akara
- Charsi
- Cain — Service Status
- Gheed
- Kashya
- Warriv
- Atma
- Drognan
- Elzix
- Fara
- Greiz
- Jerhyn
- Kaelan
- Lysandor
- Meshif
- Alkor
- Asheara
- Hrati
- Natalya
- Ormus
- Halbu
- Jamella
- Hadriel
- Anya
- Larzuk
- Malah
- Nihlathak
- Qual-kehk
D2 Bosses — ?
- Andariel
- Duriel
- Mephisto
- Diablo
- Baal
Original Ones — ?
- Chronos
- Ananke
- Jupiter
- Neptune
- Juno
- Mars
- Venus
- Bellona
- Minerva
- Janus
- Vesta
Primordial Deities — ?
- Aether
- Ananke
- Chaos
- Chronos (Chronus)
- Erebus
- Eros
- Hypnos
- The Nesoi
- Uranus
- Gaia (Gaea)
- The Ourea
- Phanes
- Pontus
- Tartarus
- Thalassa
- Thanatos
- Hemera
- Nyx
- Nemesis
Wonders of the World — ?
- Giza
- Babylon
- Olympia
- Ephesus
- Halicarnassus
- Rhodes
- Alexandria
Attack on Titan Characters — ?
- Eren
- Mikasa
- Armin
- Reiner
- Bertolt
- Sasha
- Annie
- Jean
- Conny
Hunter X Hunter Characters — ?
- Gon
- Killua
- Kurapika
- Leorio
- Hisoka
- Basho
- Biscuit
- Buhara
- Hanzo
- Morei
- Satotz
- Wingsan
- Ging
- Dwun
- Netero
- Menchi
- Lippo
- Mito
- Alluka
- Illumi
- Zeno
- Silva
- Kikyo
- Gotoh
- Zushi
- Chrollo
- Nobunaga
- Meruem
- Neferpitou
- Shaiapouf
- Menthu
Lord of the Rings Cities — ?
- Aldburg
- Alqualondë
- Andúnië
- Annúminas
- Archet
- Armenelos
- Avallonë
- Barad-dûr
- Belegost
- Bree
- Brockenborings
- Brithombar
- Bywater
- Calembel
- Caras Galadhon
- Carn Dûm
- Combe
- Crickhollow
- Dale was not here
- Dol Amroth
- Dunharrow
- Dunlan
- Dol Guldur
- Edhellond
- Edoras — pokelingo.com
- Eldalondë
- Eglarest
- Ephel Brandir
- Erebor
- Erech
- Esgaroth
- Ethring
- Forlond
- Formenos
- Fornost Erain
- Frogmorton
- Goblin-Town
- Gondolin
- Grey Havens
- Gondor
- Harlond
- Havens of the Falas
- Haysend
- Helm’s Deep (Hornburg)
- Hobbiton
- Isengard
- Khazad-dûm
- Kortirion
- Laketown
- Linhir
- Lond Daer Enedh
- Lorien
- Menegroth
- Michel Delving
- Minas Anor
- Minas Ithil
- Minas Morgul (Formerly Minas Ithil)
- Minas Tirith (Formerly Minas Anor)
- Mithlond
- Moria
- Nargothrond
- Needlehole
- Newbury
- Nindamos
- Nobottle
- Nogrod
- Oatbarton
- Ondosto
- Osgiliath
- Ost-in-Edhil
- Pelargir
- Pincup
- Rivendell
- Rómenna
- Rushey
- Scary
- Staddle
- Standelf
- Stock
- Tharbad
- Tirion
- Tuckborough
- Umbar
- Upbourn
- Utumno
- Valmar
- Vinyamar
- Waymoot
- Wilderfoot
Misc
- Apollo
- Astro
- Aurora
- Barcelona
- Barney
- Barracuda
- Batman
- Bender
- Bigfish
- Bladerunner
- Bongo
- Bordeaux
- Bride of Buster
- Bulldozer
- Bullwinkle
- Camelot
- Canary
- Casanova
- Cascade
- Cauldron
- Cheerio
- Cherrystone
- Cinnamon
- Cold Fusion
- Colossus
- Colusa
- Constantine
- Crusader
- Cyclone
- Dagwood
- Darwin
- Deepmind
- dejaVu
- Diesel
- Duracell
- Duraflame
- Eagle
- Echo Lake
- Edison
- Einstein
- Elixir
- Elmer
- Excalibur
- Fester
- Fireball
- Firefly
- Firestorm
- Firetruck
- Flamingo
- Fusion
- Galactica
- Gemini-64
- Green Jade
- Hades
- Honeycomb
- HotJava
- Hydra
- Indigo
- Irongate
- Ivory
- Jaguar
- Jiro
- Jonah
- Kanga
- Kodiak
- Kryptonite
- Laguna
- Liberation
- Liquid Sky
- Lorax
- Mad Hatter
- Malibu
- Mango
- Mercury
- Metro
- Moonshine
- Mr. Coffee
- Nautilus
- Nitro
- Odyssey
- Omega
- Orion
- Phoenix
- Piglet
- Prelude
- Project X
- Python
- Quadro
- Quicksilver
- Rampage
- Revolution
- Riviera
- Romeo
- Royal
- Sahara
- Sirius
- Sputnik
- Stratos
- Sunergy
- Topaz
- Topcat
- Uzi
- Vega
- Vineseed
- Voyager
- Whistler
- Wide Stringer
- Wombat
- Xena
- Yaeger
- Yoda
- Yosemite
- Zeus
- Zircon
- Zulu
