Cute server naming schemes are one of my pet peeves. In my experience the only two logical choices are: sequential numbers (e.g. foo1, ..., foo100, ... if your company name is Foo Corp.), or hashes / uuids (like amazon instance IDs, e.g. i-977a24e3). If you want to give a server a memorable or cute name, use DNS or some kind of alias.
Read the aforementioned RFC - with sequential numbers you are not naming them.
I can imagine how thrilled your colleagues are if they have to ssh into i-977 what was the rest of it?
You might as well just call them "1", "2", and "3". The only time this kind of
naming scheme is appropriate is when you have a lot of machines and there are
no reasons for any human to distinguish between them. For example, a master
computer might be controlling an array of one hundred computers. In this case,
it makes sense to refer to them with the array indices.
When you're starting off with your cute naming scheme, how do you know how many machines you'll manage in the end? Most places I've worked at have hundreds of servers. Using a simple, easy to follow, don't-make-me-think standard from the beginning is the only thing that makes sense IMO.
To give a server a meaningful name, use DNS.
edit: Also, to take your complaint about "i-977.. what was the rest of it?" and turn it around - imagine this scenario: provision 20 new app servers named foo40..foo59 OR provision 20 new app servers and think of 20 cool names to match our existing cool naming scheme of leonardo donatello michaelangelo raphael master-splinter shredder blah blah blah :)
If you don't have some toolset around managing your servers and have to resort to memorizing hostnames, being able to remember hostnames is the least of your problems.
