Guidelines for release names

This page documents how Fedora releases should be named.

Summary

• Names are suggested by the community.
  • The fedora-devel-list mailing list was previously used for suggestions.
  • Beginning with Fedora 11, name suggestions are solicited through a wiki page.
• To suggest a name, a community member must:
  • Show how the name meets the "is-a" test. For example, "Schnozz is a ____, and so is Keister."
    • Names for releases N and N+1 must be related, and names for releases N and N+2 cannot share the same relationship.
    • The "is-a" relationship must be reasonably novel. For example, "is a brand of automobile" is reasonably novel. The relationship "is a brand of automobile only manufactured in Uzbekistan" is much better. The relationship "is a word with seven letters" is not sufficiently novel.
    • Preference is given to names showing relationships never before used in a release.
    • Names of living people or well-known trademarks or goods will be rejected by Red Hat Legal. Try to find a more unusual link.
    • Names must not contain any of the following characters which are special to the shell:

       | & ; ( ) < > { } ' " #

      Note that you can use replacements from the Unicode character set such as U+2019 instead of the ASCII apostrophe.
  • Document preliminary searches showing the name is not encumbered by trademarks or other use that makes it a bad or risky choice.
• Names are vetted:
  • by the Fedora Design team for applicability to theming
  • by the Fedora Board to make sure the name ballot is of sufficient size and composition.
    • Typically, the Board has a private vote on the entire name roster (after initial vetting)
    • The top results are sent on to Legal.
  • by the Red Hat Legal department for a more intensive trademark search
• The final release name is decided through a community vote.
• Problems are resolved through the Fedora Board and the FPL.

Suggestion table

The first row is a template provided for educational purposes only.

Name	"Is a..."	Links out	Tested	Initial Approval	Themeable	Board Approved	Legal Approved
Your suggestion -- this is a dummy	foobarific muttonchop	frobozz, whatsit
Yokuts	Indian Tribe that settled Visalia CA, Robert Laughlin was born in Visalia, CA	Yokuts, Laughlin

Release Names

• Name suggestions for Fedora 18
• Name suggestions for Fedora 17
• Name suggestions for Fedora 16
• Name suggestions for Fedora 15
• Name suggestions for Fedora 14
• Name suggestions for Fedora 13
• Name suggestions for Fedora 12
• Name suggestions for Fedora 11
• History of Fedora release names