This has been discussed before, so I’ll just copy my response from there:

The term “community” more or less settled, but if you are looking for something more distinct, there is an idea to call ourselves lemmings and the communities /c/liffs that we jump on. Alternatively we could call ourselves lemmons and the communities /c/itrusses.

Pretty sure “community” is the official name

They already have a name, straight from the documentation: “communities”. You can call something a “community” and everyone knows exactly what you mean. Call it something contrived like a “sublemmy” and you have to explain it every time.

It could be something unbranded, like “communities,” as long as it was consistently used by all. But to have some call it topics, some call it communities, and some call it channels just gets confusing. I’m not even going to comment on “magazines.”

The problem lies in the federative aspect of it.

Calling the communities “sublemmies” for example, would mean that people on kbin have to call it like that too. And afaik they are called in a general way for the fediverse, just like how mastodon changed toot to post.

Does this make the platforms less unique? Yes, absolutely, but I don’t think there is a fix for it.