Today my sidebar is displaying a (2) next to my computer name.
I saw a post on Apple Discussions that says there are 2 devices with the same name.
Why did this happen all of the sudden?
I have a computer I sync with at work, but that is a different name.
The only other device is my iPod touch, but I've had that for a couple years, and it never showed a (2) in the sidebar.
Any suggestions?

I see that all of the time, especially on laptops that get moved from one location to another. It bugs me as I have no idea how to stop it from happening. Renaming it in Sharing is the only workaround that I know of, and sometimes that doesn't stick. This gives a few sceanrios, any of it apply to what you do with the computer? Multiple sharing protocols enabled seems to be the big thing.

It seems to be a bug in Apple's networking, it's like it remembers old network connections and gets confused. I have read where their bonjour implementation may be a culprit. It causes problems when one is using printer sharing, the machines can't see the shared printers anymore.

This has been going on for a long time, at least through Leopard, can't remember if Tiger did it.

Where does OS X keep its list of recent servers? Find that and delete the one with the (2) reference?

OK!
Cleared Recent Servers, and renamed (removed (2)) computer in Sharing Preferences.
All is well.

Thanks you guys.

If I remember correctly.. I cloned my tower to my laptop and didn't change the name... once they saw each other one got renamed with a 2.

To prevent this, name your computer something goofy that no one else is likely to have named their computer. "Mr. Sprinkles' Handy Letter Opener" or something.

Did you see the part where I said I cloned an existing system?

That will do it for sure. I have seen it happen when the name was unique but they used SuperDuper or something to clone to another drive on a regular basis. It saw the other drive attached and renamed the main drive user name.