One company that I worked at... while the hardware people had their boring "r17s4ad" type name (rack 17, shelf 4, application, development), our team used the naming scheme of Caribbean islands. This worked rather well.
Unfortunately, I only remember the test and production server names. The test systems were "Trinidad" and "Tobago". The production systems where "Nevis" and "Nassau" (the app started with an 'N').
The thing that made this work really well was that the first syllable hinted on what the rest of the word would be and then everything beyond that reinforced that you read it right. This even was the case that foreign accents, while slightly off still reinforced the "you heard this right".
The machines _also_ had names of "test01" and "test02" or similar... but we (as devs) never used those names because you had to listen to the end of it to be sure that you had the right machines.
Unfortunately, I only remember the test and production server names. The test systems were "Trinidad" and "Tobago". The production systems where "Nevis" and "Nassau" (the app started with an 'N').
The thing that made this work really well was that the first syllable hinted on what the rest of the word would be and then everything beyond that reinforced that you read it right. This even was the case that foreign accents, while slightly off still reinforced the "you heard this right".
The machines _also_ had names of "test01" and "test02" or similar... but we (as devs) never used those names because you had to listen to the end of it to be sure that you had the right machines.