For most of the people I talk to "computers" is enough and probably puts them off. After that I try and concentrate on what they do.
I like Brent Ozar's approach. I think I may try and use that more often. It relates the database bit to them. If they are sufficiently interested then we can dig deeper. 
On the humorous side I have a friend who spends most of his life working with robotics and writing Python. When asked his job title he usually says "Gardener" (!) because that is what he does for a hobby. He regards almost everything he does as a kind of game - lucky man!