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We're 2 teams of SQL Server Database Administrators one based in Europe and one in India, apart from traditional DBA's work we work on different technologies also. we have been looking for team name change which suits our current work.

  1. Europe team wants to have Engineer in the designation, for example: System Engineers, Database Engineers.

  2. Indian team needs a name that gives significance to Database in the name and they also wants Engineer also in the name, for example: Database Reliability Engineers, Cloud Engineers.

    where as Europe team don't care if Database is in name or not.

Now coming to the other technologies we work on:

  • Azure: We spin up VMs, Create PaaS DBs, Create ADF Pipelines, Manage Subscriptions, Manage permissions etc
  • Google Cloud: Work on Big query, buckets, Spin up VMs, manage projects, manage permissions etc
  • On Premise: We manage SAN, 20 Physical Hosts and VMs running on them, Switches, Firewall, VM Creation etc.
  • Monitoring Side: Zabbix installed and Configured by DBA's which monitors Linux and Windows machine over On-premise, Azure and Google Cloud, we have other monitoring systems also in place.

This gives a brief idea of what all we work on. We have gone through many discussion for this and can't come up with a team name which is liked by both the teams and recognized in industry and suites our work.

Since this will be our future designations what could be the best suited name for the team?

Edit: If both Engineer and Database comes in single title then both team can agree on that name.

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    It is clear that any name that includes "Database" is unsuitable given the breadth of responsibilities. Also, a team name is not just the individual title names with 's' at the end. I'd settle for a TEAM name that gives the most meaning to the organisation, and have TITLE names that are most meaningful for the locale each person works in. – Gregory Currie Sep 25 '19 at 5:48
  • Are you asking about the team name or the name of an individual title? – Brandin Sep 25 '19 at 10:47
  • Related: How do I choose an appropriate job title? – David K Sep 25 '19 at 12:06
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The short answer is: you can name the team any way you want. There is no general rule, as you are already aware of.

As supporting arguments, here are some of my answers:

Answer 1

Answer 2

And an answer from another user (@bethlakshmi):

Answer 3

In Peopleware. Productive Projects and Teams, chapter 19, Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister talk about an unusual team:

[...] Thus was born the legendary Black Team.

The Black Team was initially made up of people who had proved themselves to be slightly better at testing than their peers. They were slightly more motivated. They also were testing code that had been written by someone else, so they were free of the cognitive dissonance that hampers developers when testing their own programs. [...]

To enhance the growing image of nastiness, team members began to dress in black (hence the name Black Team). [...] Some of the members grew long mustaches that they could twirl in Simon Legree fashion.

[...] Programmers began to mutter about the diseased minds on the Black Team.

Needless to say, the company was delighted. Every defect the team found was one that the customers wouldn't find. The team was a success. [...]

As you can see, there is nothing about testing in the team's name.

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  • Aren't all those answers talking about title names. Also the OP wants to know what to call their team. Not if it's possible to name it whatever they want. – Gregory Currie Sep 25 '19 at 6:01
  • It is about names in a business / corporation. For a person, for a team, for a department, for a project etc. The same rule applies: the names are not standard anywhere. BTW, how is a title name radically different than a team name? – virolino Sep 25 '19 at 6:02
  • Team names are different, because a team may be composed of people with different titles. Just cause the team is called X, doesn't mean the titles are Junior X, and Senior X. Anyway, the question is: "Since this will be our future designations what could be the best suited name for the team?" Your answer is: "Anything". I'm going to assume that "Cheesecake Eaters" is a good name for the team then? – Gregory Currie Sep 25 '19 at 6:12
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    As an extreme (even if jokingly), a team's name can actually be "Cheesecake Eaters" - provided they are not lactose intolerant. The ONLY rule is that the name MUST BE UNIQUE within the company - to be able to differentiate the teams. Of course, a name related to the job is better, but not vital. – virolino Sep 25 '19 at 6:19
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    I will not deny, you are right: some names are better than others. The problem appears when the work is hindered ONLY because they cannot choose between Engineer and Database. That's when anything is better than nothing, just to "break the deadlock". And a team's name can always change. I worked in a company where managers' best activity was to change the names of the teams, roles and projects, at least once a year. From at least 6 or 7 names of my department, I can only remember 2 acronyms, and the meaning of only 1 acronym. It was useless info, the work was the same. – virolino Sep 25 '19 at 6:42
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What I think is most suitable is Global Operations Team.

Pick a suitable title for members for Europe and India, and give each member of the team a choice to use either one. Make sure they are aware that they are equivalent.

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