Naming the Baby (Gwen Moritz Editor’s Note)

Even though Nov. 6 will mark the 20th anniversary of First Commercial Bank being acquired by Regions Bank, its name can still be found on the parking deck adjacent to its former namesake building in downtown Little Rock.

Ever since John O. Moore and Vance St. Columbia dropped by the office earlier this month I’ve been trying to think of ways to help them with their problem.

Moore recently returned to his hometown to become CEO of the bank formerly known as Helena National Bank, and St. Columbia (whose name would make a great byline) is a VP and director. They just converted Helena National to a state bank charter, and for now it is called HNB Bank. But that’s only until they can find the perfect name for a small bank that intends to spread its footprint after nearly 80 years of service to the Arkansas Delta.

All of the best names are taken, Moore complained, and he’s not the first and won’t be the last.

When Helena National was founded in 1940, and earlier, banks didn’t branch and they certainly didn’t cross county lines or state lines. Banks named for the founders (Simmons, McIlroy), names that were nondescript and common (First National Bank, First State Bank) or names that were market-specific (Piggott State Bank, Bank of Prescott) made perfect sense.

A notable exception: First Security Bank of Searcy was originally Security Bank when it was chartered in 1932. It was ahead of its time. Banks chartered later, or renamed, tended toward names like that — evocative of safety and soundness in vague and nonspecific ways: Peoples, Pinnacle, Community, Capital.

But there are really only so many words that make the right impression, as Moore and St. Columbia have discovered. It’s harder than naming your kid.

Integrity is a good bank name, which is why First National Bank & Trust of Mountain Home became Integrity First in 2012. Cornerstone is perfect; there are 16 variations of that name around the country and it’s been 10 years since Charles Cross snapped it up for the former Bank of Eureka Springs. Ozark Heritage Bank in Mountain View — Stone County, that is — was renamed Stone Bank when it switched to a state charter in 2015. (It still feels abrupt, but I’m getting used to it.)

The Bank of Rison changed its name to Gateway Bank in 2015. Five other banks have Gateway in their name, but only one used that name before Y2K. Forrest City Bank became Armor Bank last year, a name that suggests safety and is also a nod to Armor Seeds, one of several agribusinesses owned by the Waldrip family that bought controlling interest in the bank. It is the only Armor Bank in the country.

You want to rely on your bank, so Pine Bluff National became Relyance Bank in 2013. (Playing with the spelling of a familiar word is not unprecedented. When my husband and I fled the doomed Arkansas Gazette and started a 10-year exile in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989, we opened a meager account at Sovran Bank entirely because I thought that was a cool name.)

The Helena folks could keep HNB Bank; First National Banking Co. of Ash Flat has been FNBC Bank since it converted its charter in 2014. (There’s another one in Illinois.)

Making up names is also an option. First National Bank of Green Forest became Anstaff Bank when it converted to a state charter in 2014. The name is a tribute to its founding Anderson and Stafford families.

Bank of the Ozarks clung to its geographic roots long after expanding outside of Arkansas, but this year finally switched to Bank OZK, which is clearly a bank name and pays homage to its origins — but it has a drawback. A coworker reported hearing two restaurant employees asking customers wearing shirts stitched with the Bank OZK logo how to pronounce the new name. (It’s O-Z-K.) Arkansas Business Publishing Group had the same problem when we launched Little Rock Soirée. (It’s swah-ray.)

So how can we help our friends in Helena? I’ve been trying to think of words that would make good bank names. My first idea was lodestar. That’s a word, meaning a star or other thing that serves at a guide, that Vice President Mike Pence has used so often that he was suspected of writing the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times that also contained that word. There’s not a single Lodestar Bank in the country.

Then I thought of beacon. There are beacons on the Mississippi River, aren’t there? The only two banks with Beacon in the name are in Charleston, South Carolina, and San Francisco. Guardian Bank sounds good. There are banks with variations on that name in Georgia, Illinois and Ohio. Or sentinel — there’s a First Sentinel Bank in Virginia.

My final suggestion: Co-opt the name of the best French onion dip on the planet and call it Heluva Bank.

Confidential to Vance St. Columbia: There is a bank in Chicago called Byline Bank.

Email Gwen Moritz, editor of Arkansas Business, at GMoritz@ABPG.com and follow her on Twitter at @gwenmoritz.