Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stingray’ is about to be released – but what will the next release be called?

Right now, we don’t know, but care to take a guess?

Traditional dictates that the Ubuntu 27.04 title will be made up of an adjective and animal (real or mythical) that both begin with the letter ‘T’.

There’s been a tranche of terrific names of late:

  • Oracular Oriole
  • Plucky Puffin
  • Questing Quokka
  • Resolute Raccoon
  • Stonking Stingray

These tell us one thing: the codename combo is rarely an obvious pairing.

On the adjective side, Ubuntu swings from silly (Saucy, Bionic, Disco, Hirsute) to professional (LTS’ have used Hardy, Trusty, Resolute) to “eDuKaShuNal“, teaching us a word we might’ve thought was a typo (Eoan, Oneiric, Yakkety).

I did a bit cod–or tuna fish–analysis on the 45 codename pairings Ubuntu’s used so far:

  • 37.8% of codename adjectives end in -y
  • 75.6% of codename adjectives have 2 syllables
  • 62.2% of codename animals have 2 syllables
  • No codename adjective has been a single syllable

Tenacious? Tactile? Triumphant? Thrifty?

Animals that begin with T include obvious choices (the majority of Ubuntu’s animal mascots are familiar to most people, it needn’t preclude a choice). Better yet, many of have distinctive shapes that would make effective mascot artwork:

  • Tapir – trunk-snouted mammal found in South America and Southeast Asia
  • Toucan – tropical bird with a brightly coloured bill
  • Tasmanian devil*– carnivorous marsupial native to the island of Tasmania
  • Tarantula – small, cute—wait, a huge hairy spider
  • Tiger shark* – marine predator known for the dark stripes on its body
  • Toad – you don’t need me to tell you what a toad is, right

Lesser-known animals could include:

  • Tuatara – ancient New Zealand reptile
  • Tamandua – tree-dwelling anteater with grasping tail
  • Tayra – a fear-inducing member of the weasel family
  • Tiger-kangaroo* – a tree-dwelling marsupial
  • Takahē – flightless ‘swamp hen’ found in New Zealand
  • Tegu – a large South American lizard

*Ubuntu has, to date, never used a double-barrelled animal in a codename. And as Ubuntu 14.04 was Trusty Tahr, we can rule that out.

Perhaps there’s a topical and timely choice: the recently discovered Tilcayo cat (Leopardus tilcayo), a small species of wild cat native to the cloud forests of Bolivia.

Those are the ones I can think of, but there are plenty more animals out there, so tell me what your guess for Ubuntu 27.04 TT is down in the comments – feel free to add any flowery explanations on why you think your take is a top one.

There are no prizes if you guess correctly, but you earn the right to wear a smug look for the duration of the next development cycle. And who doesn’t like feeling smug, right?

My shake of the magic 8-ball is… YES. Wait, try again. NO. Dang it. Thrifty Tapir. There we go. My