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Ask HN: What are the worst names given to employees of specific companies?

25 points by jmartens ↗ HN
At PagerDuty, employees are Dutonians. At New Relic, they are Relics. At Amazon they are Amazonians.

What are the worst names given to employees of specific companies?

67 comments

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cratermoon
At Metal Toad they are Toads.
jmartens
That's bad, but I am sure there are worse!
version_five
There has to be some weighing for if/how they are actually used in the wild. For example, metamates is objectively horrible, but I'm not sure anyone actually uses it. Xoogler, noogler objectively are neutral, but end up sounding super douchy because of how often they get thrown around by actual google people

Also, domosapien https://www.domo.com/company

ryeights
>domosapien

LOL. The only one of these I’ve actually liked

MollyRealized
In a theoretical world where "domosapien" was related to a company named after "Mr. Roboto" -- say, a company called Kilroy -- I cold really dig being called that.
logicalmonster
Facebook = "Metamates" = Peak cringe
lokokokonut
Should've just called them Mates
kojiromike
Missed opportunity to call themselves "metahumans" and get the DC Comics lawyers after 'em.
Sevii
Please tell me they used to be called "bookies" before that.
aristus
It was "facebookers" in spoken talk, "fbers" written. Former employees are generally referred to as "ex-fb". Many private discussion groups with that in the name.
hooverd
The pivoting pivots of Pivotal Software. gong noise
renewiltord
Research in Motion : rimmers

SAP: saps

Snowflake: Snowflakes

Workday: Workers

Microsoft: Softies

Intel: Intelligentsia

Adobe: Dobes

Broadcom: Broads

IBM : Bummers

PayPal: Charge Friends

Uber: Uberalles

Atlassian: Shruggers

Marvell Technology: Kree

Dell: Dellions

ComputerGuru
Did you just make these up? Good job quick thinking!

> Atlassian: Shruggers

Ayn Rand?

> Marvell Technology: Kree

Stargate?

klipt
> Marvell Technology: Kree

More likely a reference to the recent Captain Marvel movie.

ComputerGuru
I prefer my sci-fi aged and esoteric, like a fine wine. (Haven't watched most of the Marvel movies after it became sequel after sequel six months apart.)

"Jaffa! Kree!" is timeless (though with no connections to MRVL).

masenf
I’ve tried “Dellberts” internally once and it wasn’t well received.
6nf
Dell: Delldos
xnx
Uber: Ubermensch
rl1987
Scoot Pte Ltd: Scooties.
Hellion
Credit Karma’s Karmanauts. Oof.
shoo
i hope their compliance department goes by "karma police" internally
jaggederest
Funny story about New Relic: The name is an anagram of the CEO's, "Lew Cirne". Not sure if that's widely known, but he just used it as a placeholder while working as an entrepreneur in residence at a VC fund for his next project, and it stuck.
mynegation
FWIW I think New Relic is an awesome name. It has rhythm and slight hint of controversy to it.
pc86
I'll be honest, I have no idea what a "hint of controversy" is supposed to mean in this context.
positr0n
Probably the juxtaposition of terms New and "Relic" when relics are supposed to be ancient objects.
quickthrower2
“New Relic” describes most code committed in the last week!
mynegation
Sorry, cannot edit original comment. As an ESL I fell into a classic “false friends” trap. I meant “paradox”, not a “controversy” (that in English usually means something akin to “bad rep”).
blululu
Pinployees at Pinterest Twilions at Twilio Coinbaes at Coinbase
moomoo11
Just call them dorks.

- also called something dorky at my job lmao

I like it tho even if it’s a bit cringe. At least we all on the same mission while we working together.

killjoywashere
Army - Soldiers (nailed it)

Navy - Sailors (nailed it)

Marines - Marines (nailed it)

Air Force - Airmen (eh, okay?)

Coast Guard - Coasties (I mean, sure. Welcome, our DoT brethren)

Space Force - Guardians, complete with Star Trek outfits and staring upward into the distance. /sigh

defrost
Space Cadets would've been the polite goto in Australia .. given collectively the US forces are often referred to as seppos.
techdragon
While we’re talking about government versions. The NASA astronaut recruits have arguably one of the worst. Their official title is “Astronaut Candidate” but as nothing so long can go un-abbreviated at NASA, they are simply referred to as (even in many official documents) as ASCANs, pronounced “Ass Can”.
5555624
> Coast Guard - Coasties (I mean, sure. Welcome, our DoT brethren)

During peacetime, the US Coast Guard is now part of the Department of Homeland Security. (It was part of the Department of Transportation fro 1967 - 2003.)

open-paren
Adobe employee. I keep trying to get "Adobos" or at least "Adobians" to catch on, but it hasn't yet.
WalterBright
When I was at Aph around 1978, we all trooped off to some electronics convention. Since my job there was assembling prototype boards, when I was getting the badge at the ticket booth, and I was asked my job title, I said "Gnome".

The guy creating the badge was horrified. He asked me several times if I really wanted this, and I confirmed. The Aph people behind me then gave their job titles as "Wizard", "Nerd", and some other fantasy terms.

Attendees would read our badges and exclaim they should have done the same thing.

Thereafter, this became commonplace.

I don't know if I started this trend, but it seems like I was the first. I wish I'd kept the badge, but who knew?

d23
Reddit is snoos. I don't think it's that bad though.
jlarocco
My current company, Anark, we would be "Anark-ists", but we don't actually refer to ourselves that way.

Personally I can't stand that type of name, and think the whole idea is silly and cringy.

gedy
Citrix: Citrites
cperciva
I don't know what YC employees are called, but I really hope they're "Combinations".
jahewson
Surely they should be functions?