Name that bank! The right moniker may be more important than you think.

• Position: Marketing News

Your bank may be burdened with an old-fashioned name.

"In the past, monolithically designed corner bank buildings displayed their hard assets," says Naseem Javed, author of the book "Naming for Power," and founder of the business ABC Namebank. "Overly dramatic, long and monopolistic names engraved on the buildings provided the assurance to the early settlers, e.g., The First Chartered Bank of the First Dominion."

Today with the growth of online banking and global e-commerce, there is a thick forest of strange names out there, and thousands of online identifies are clashing with each other, causing confusion among names and services.

Javed says a good bank name has the following characteristics:

* Is memorable.

* Can be easily typed.

* Vocalizes pleasantly when spoken by people in different parts of the world.

* Creates instant accessibility on the Net.

* Can be quickly searched on the Web.

In other words, bankers today need to consider renaming their bank and products not only for branding purposes but also for cyber-branding purposes. "The name identity of a business will be the only measure on how a name works in a micro-multinational formation of countries and cultures," notes Javed. "Under the new rules, a name works like a key, being the only thing that can unlock the doors to this Net-kingdom."

He offers three suggestions on how to achieve a healthy renaming of either your bank or your bank products and services:

1. Determine whether your names are "healthy," "injured" or "on life support. "To a customer, a name is a name, no matter how it is offered. Healthy names are easy, unique and one of a kind with global protection and a dot-com.

   "Injured" names are long, confusing or initialized, like UCBH, CIBC, BB&T or RBCFG.

   "Life support" names are entangled into serious trademark or...