How We Picked Monzo

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Great job checking all that names. Congratulations!

However, as an Italian, if initially Mondo meant World, Monzo instead sounds very bad for us, so much I originally thought you were kidding during the live.

Many words that finish in -onzo usually are bad or meant to be seen in a bad way, so I have to be honest… I don’t feel really happy about this choice.

I hope though my fellow Italians will differ from my opinion and the new naming will be accepted by everyone :slight_smile:

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Interesting, thanks Marco! We’ll be sure to ask some more people before we launch in Italy.

I’ll never forgive you for not choosing Banky McBankface.
#LostCustomer

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Monzo doesn’t hit the spot for me I’m afraid but it is just a name…As long as your service is superior to the other three then it won’t matter so much.

Talking of the ‘others’ how did you let Starling get the jump on you with that website? Perhaps a community poll on how best to get them back!

Going back to names, I think Atom hits the nail on the head with their name but Mondo, sorry Monzo’s M logo definitely trumps their A logo!

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to be honest I would rather our community concentrate on how to make a better product for our users rather than thinking up how Monzo could copy Starlings child like attitude of trying to “get one over” on a competitor by continually tweeting and re tweeting between themselves how they cleverly pre registered some domain names last month trying to guess what Mondo was changing its name to, that had absolutely no meaning for them except self publication in Monzos shadow and patting each other on the back all day on how funny it is - presumably they have little else to do :wink:

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I don’t mean to dampen the enthusiasm over your name choice but I must agree Monzo doesn’t quite cut it for me either. Perhaps, being Italian also, Monzo sounds clumsy and childish as most word ending in -onzo aren’t generally positive. Also, I appreciate you went through a lot of suggestions but in the end all that changed was a letter: I would have expected something slightly more imaginative/creative. Midas for example would have been a much cleverer choice in my opinion.
I still think this is a great project though and I’ll be sure to follow your exciting developments over the coming months.

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I think one of the challenges of being a bank like Monzo is getting the balance between the cool emoticon, relational chatty style, and the reliable boringness that you need to build trust in a bank. This whole rebrand thing has been hugely hype over substance. We all got (unreasonably) excited about the new branding, it was hyped up to the community loads, but when it was announced there was nothing to it. I can’t be alone in checking in last night to find z is the new d and thinking ‘that’s the best they could come up with?’.

But move on, Monzo it is. Can I have my new current account soon please…

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And then this happened. According to their Twitter profile, it’s a UK bank account that ‘makes managing money effortless’. Whoops…

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Really like Monzo and glad that you were able to get the .com domain name and Twitter handler. I know how important these are, at least to me they are very important.

So does this mean we are now Monzonauts and not Mondonauts? :open_mouth:

and I’ll Monz you my share of the bill ?

Being an Italian, I’m with @daturi on this too. Bit of a fail really! Time for another rebrand? :smiley:

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I reaaaaally like those hoodie designs. What is it with banks and hoodies anyway?

Nice work with the name update!

I’ve been trying to think of a fandom name for the community post name change. How about Monzoid? :robot:

Maybe it will grow on me but as I’ve seen other people say, it sounds like the name of a muppet. And because of that, and the use of a “z” at the end (which reminds me of teenager-like slang), psychologically it makes me in some way not think of a serious bank. I think also your friendly and chatty “social media-esque” style (which is great) means you need to be careful with how you name yourself (so you’re taken seriously).

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Completely agree Dave. monzo was ruled out during the shortlisting process but an investor had so much influence, the name was chosen regardless. I don’t believe the investor has a role or position in the company, and doesn’t seem to be a community participant. The rush for a .com domain name is rather 2005, and especially odd since the bank is app-only and has repeatedly stated it will not create a web version.

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Rather overstating things here. All I get from the link is that a website isn’t a current priority. It certainly doesn’t say ‘never’.

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Indeed, I think the thing to take away here is that a website is not considered the core product right now. That’s not to say you will never see any kind of web interface but that the focus is clearly on the banking side, backend (including API) and apps.

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Will forever be Mondo for me!

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