Mac changed its own Name

I am running 10.5.6

New MacBookPro named "H-1-111-XX"
Connected it via wireless to our business network.
We do not run OD (OSX server yet)
We do have an AD but this Mac was/is not bound to AD

I did however run RDP for Mac (from Mactopia) and RDPed in to several of our servers (but not AD)

Later in the same day I noticed that the name in the Terminal was not the same name as in sys pref/Shared

The Mac changed the name from "H-1-111-XX" to "H-LT-OKAP"
In Sys Pref/Shared the name was still H-1-111-XX but at the same time the Terminal said it was H-LT-OKAP

The H-LT-OKAP is not a random name. It is a name from an old windows laptop which has been off the domain for over a year. However this name "H-LT-OKAP" is still in our AD and that is where the Mac got it from.

Any idea of why or how the Mac change its name?

Cheers
Yev

Well, my first thought is not the AD, but rather the DNS - the IP that the Mac may be sitting on could be the same IP address you had assigned the laptop, and it's entry may still exist in the DNS record so when a reverse lookup is done on the IP of the mac, the name determined for it is the laptop rather then it's "given" name.

My first thought would be check your DNS server (probably the same one as your AD server) and see if there is an entry for that laptop in the forward and reverse files and make the appropriate changes.

That is a good point, I will check the DNS.
But is it common for the DNS to force the Mac to change its name?

and why would the name be different in terminal versus the Shared name.

Cheers
Yev

The terminal is showing the dns obtained name, where as your syspref is showing the name you assigned the box - this is normal operation for terminal on OSX in that it takes the name of the primary ethernet IP address.

Nethfel
Doesn't changing the Terminal name actually effect something? I also read on a different forum that it not only changes terminal name but also shared name (sometimes).
even if mine does not change the share name isn't this still a bit of a problem? why is it ok for my Mac to take the name of a different machine based on DNS.
If this is ok than what is the advantage of having this change made versus what is the detriment of this occurrence?

I am glad to see someone actually knew of the issue, thank you for posting.
Cheers
Yev