The scariest nicknames fintechs have for their employees

In an effort to create a community culture separate from their stricter TradFi counterparts, many fintech startups create little nicknames to give their employees a unique identity. Some keep it simple while other fintechs do road too much

If you like any of the names below, that’s fine. But if just being called an employee does the job for you, be warned; the following names may make you squirm.

(Dis)honorable mention – The ‘ers’

There are a lot of fintechs out there that, when it comes to naming employees, take the laziest route possible, add an “is” to the end of their name and call it a day.

Crypto company Ripple calls its employees Ripplers, digibank Chime calls theirs Chimers. One of the extremely rare examples of this actually being good is infrastructure provider Toast which, you guessed it, calls its employees Toasters.

Say what you will about the names below (and there are some bad ene), but at least they put in some effort.

Klarna – Klarnauts

Buy now pay later (BNPL) giant Klarna isn’t quite the tour-de-force they used to be in the sector. As going “to the moon” becomes more and more unlikely, this ambitious yet silly name has lost much of its luster.

That said, at least the addition of “nauts” somewhat fits the name. Monzo does a similar thing with their Monzonauts and it gets even worse.

Brex – Brexlings

If you visit the culture page of digital banking platform Brex, you can expect to see the company name crammed into as many nouns as possible. While the overall employee base does not have a nickname, Brexlings refers to the support network for working parents and carers. Lovely sentiment, painful name, especially if you’re based in the UK.

Kraken – Krakenites

Somehow the crypto giant Kraken has managed to make the mythical sea monster uncool. If adding “ite” didn’t work for Goldman Sachs when people started calling them Goldmanites, it was never going to work anywhere else in finance.

Gusto – Gustier

This name needs no explanation as to why it is on the list. With regard to the payroll infrastructure provider, the name wrote it somewhat into a corner. Not even taking a page from Succession’s book and calling them ‘More brothers’ (and sisters) could have saved this.

Robinhood – Robinhoodies

The stockbroker Robinhood, which was named after the famous outlaw, missed the opportunity to let the community name be inspired by part of the Robin Hood legend. Of course, calling the team “Merry Men” wouldn’t fly when aiming for an inclusive workplace, but surely something better could have been done.

The name’s saving grace, however, is that it makes light of the name of Robinhood’s resource group for parenting staff, Parenthoodies. That name (just about) works.

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