Oh, such a long thread. I had been trying to stay away from it (because the naming really is not so important for me), but here is my opinion: “Elixirist” so hard to pronounce in Russian and even harder to pronounce in English by Russians. I’m over. Thank you for your attention. 
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Hmm. It is not any better when you try to translate into Japanese, as it sounds something like, ‘E-ri-ku-i-ri-su-to’.
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I’m telling more about pronunciation. Elixirst (original) is very hard to pronounce, than Alchemist for russians (and I suppose for everyone who speaks any slavic language).
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Just out of curiosity, would you say алхимик or would you try to russify the word chosen for it in English, usually, if you for some reason were saying that you were an alchemist, in the Elixir context?
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Oh, nice question) the raw translation алхимик sounds pretty ridiculous, agreed. I would say either “Alchemist” with russian accent =) or translated “Elixir developer” (Elixir-разработчик). Elixirist just doesn’t work (for me, as russian native speaker) in any form: original or translated.
PS: that was a luck Rubyist sounds so good on russian manner Рубист and easy to pronounce (of course, nobody tries to translate Rubyist).
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Be a nice human being, go for explicitness. “Elixir developper”. Done.
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Elixirists, because:
- José likes that - enough said
- Alchemy was basically “waste of time and effort”, but elixir (generally the potion) sounds to be well crafted, useful and can be an ingredient for something even better. Elixirist means that you know what you are doing
- Language is Elixir, not Alchemy
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Oh man the “nerds” in here 
This reminds me of the time a recruiter was selling me as a “Rich Interactive application analyst” after I told her I could do some JS. If we are putting this up to a vote I want to be label as a “meat popsicle.”
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Elixirist sounds like a bad word in portuguese for me don’t you think @josevalim? Idk if u got the word it sounds like
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Alchemists is way cooler!!
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Bruce Tate called Elixir community, “Elixir Mafia” in Programming Elixir’s acknowledgements. What if we call Elixir programmers, Elixters (Singular Elixter, Elixir + Gangster, Gangster from Mafia)?
@josevalim @chrismccord, do you like this term?
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I signed that domain up a while ago 
as I was thinking about using it for promotional videos about Elixir (from the perspective of an ‘Elixter’) - however it was more along the lines of a friendster sharing info/knowledge maybe with a bit of trickster magic thrown in 
I think I also have Elixster and a few others as Elixter was owned by someone else until last year.
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I’d love to type elixter.com and watch new talks by Elixir community’s superstars.
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My idea was more promotional videos - bit like the Rails Envy videos (tho not the same style).
We even started on the branding
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That’s a great idea. I started web development very late (I was a Geo-technical Engineer/Geologist by profession), but I watched some of those videos by Gregg Pollack and Jason Seifer, and I loved those videos.
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The Rails Envy videos themselves were inspired by the Apple vs Windows videos
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Pardon the post necromancy, but what about Mixologists? 
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I really like the term ‘Alchemist’ – it fits perfectly within the naming conventions of the Elixir language, which have a bit of a ‘fantasy/occult’ vibe, like Hex, Elixir, Phoenix, etc. However, it does have a downside – it can’t really be used outside the community, for example, in a job description.
Because of this, outside the community, ‘Elixir developer’ or ‘Elixir dev’ works better, but within the community – at gatherings, forums, etc. – it’s perfectly fine to use ‘Alchemists’ just because it sparks joy I think 
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