It is well known in the ServiceNow Community that releases are named after cities. What is not known is how it is decided what city will be used for the naming.

Investigation

Triggered by the questions and suggestions in both the Community and LinkedIn, this series will investigate possible options to determine the names. Why not "U" for "Utrecht" or a city in India? Hopefully we can figure this out together. If you have any alternate theories you would like to investigate, please leave in the comments. If you know on what basis a city is picked, also please let us know!

Capital cities of countries

Are the version names the capitals of big countries?

Current version/city names

Release name	Country	Capital
Aspen	United States	Washington
Berlin	Germany	Berlin
Calgary	Canada	Ottawa
Dublin	Ireland	Dublin
Eureka	United States	Washington
Fuji	Japan	Tokyo
Geneva	Switzerland	Bern
Helsinki	Finland	Helsinki
Istanbul	Turkey	Ankara
Jakarta	Indonesia	Jakarta
Kingston	Jamaica	Kingston
London	United Kingdom	London
Madrid	Spain	Madrid
New York	United States	Washington
Orlando	United States	Washington
Paris	France	Paris
Quebec	Canada	Ottawa
Rome	Italy	Rome
San Diego	United States	Washington
Tokyo	Japan	Tokyo
Utah	United States	Washington
Vancouver	Canada	Ottawa
Washington	United States	Washington

Although many of the release names match the Capital (47,8%), not all version names are Capitals of countries.

Alternative: Alphabetic city names based on Capital

If we would create an alphabetical list of Capitals and use the Capitals as versions, the list would look like this:

City	First letter	Country
Abu Dhabi	A	Ivory Coast
Baghdad	B	Iraq
Cairo	C	Egypt
Dakar	D	Senegal
El Aaiún	E	Western Sahara [c]
Flying Fish Cove	F	Christmas Island
Gaborone	G	Botswana
Hagåtña	H	Guam
Islamabad	I	Pakistan
Jakarta	J	Indonesia
Kabul	K	Afghanistan
La Paz	L	Bolivia
Mbabane	M	Swaziland
Nairobi	N	Kenya
Oranjestad	O	Aruba
Pago Pago	P	American Samoa
Quito	Q	Ecuador
Rabat	R	Morocco
Saipan	S	Northern Mariana Islands
Taipei	T	Taiwan
Ulaanbaatar	U	Mongolia
Vaduz	V	Liechtenstein
Warsaw	W	Poland
Yaoundé	Y	Cameroon
Zagreb	Z	Croatia

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%5Fof%5Fnational%5Fcapitals

What do you think? Where do the ServiceNow version names come from? What would you name the versions? What City would definitely need to be on the list?