This is something that has been bugging me for some time.
I mean, calling a financial institution "Fifth Third Bank" is about as imaginative as naming a road "Fifth Avenue" simply because it is between Fourth Avenue and Sixth Avenue or christening a child John Smith when that's also its father's name.
Fifth Third Bank is doubly bizarre, however, because it makes me wonder what happened to the first four or whether, like in the John Smith II example above, this is actually the third attempt to launch a Fifth Bank. Alternatively, perhaps someone is simply bad at maths, and should actually have called it "One-and-Two-Thirds Bank". Or perhaps its headquarters are at the corner of Third and Fifth Street.
Whatever the answer, there certainly aren't other Third or Fifth Banks around. So why this one?
As so often when the New World throws me a banana skin, I decided to refer to the online Bible of perceived wisdom: Wikipedia. Boringly enough, this informs me that the Fifth Third Bank is actually the result of the merger in 1908 of the Third National Bank with the Fifth National Bank.
Unfortunately, neither Wikipedia nor the Fifth Third Bank site gives any clues as to where the names of the two parent institutions came from, so from my experience of all things American I must presume that one was the third nationally established bank, the other the fifth.
Isn't imagination a wonderfully elusive creature?
I mean, calling a financial institution "Fifth Third Bank" is about as imaginative as naming a road "Fifth Avenue" simply because it is between Fourth Avenue and Sixth Avenue or christening a child John Smith when that's also its father's name.
Fifth Third Bank is doubly bizarre, however, because it makes me wonder what happened to the first four or whether, like in the John Smith II example above, this is actually the third attempt to launch a Fifth Bank. Alternatively, perhaps someone is simply bad at maths, and should actually have called it "One-and-Two-Thirds Bank". Or perhaps its headquarters are at the corner of Third and Fifth Street.
Whatever the answer, there certainly aren't other Third or Fifth Banks around. So why this one?
As so often when the New World throws me a banana skin, I decided to refer to the online Bible of perceived wisdom: Wikipedia. Boringly enough, this informs me that the Fifth Third Bank is actually the result of the merger in 1908 of the Third National Bank with the Fifth National Bank.
Unfortunately, neither Wikipedia nor the Fifth Third Bank site gives any clues as to where the names of the two parent institutions came from, so from my experience of all things American I must presume that one was the third nationally established bank, the other the fifth.
Isn't imagination a wonderfully elusive creature?
2 comments:
Classic. The 5 over 3 logo does give the impression that they go the extra yard, rather like footballers who give 110%. This bank puts in 166.66% commitment... Surely a better option than the other way round, i.e. 3/5, which would have been just 60%. My mind's already in a tangle - this is going to be a long week...
That's it: it must be a pseudonym for the Mile Conversion Bank, kindly giving the approximate multiplication factor for confused New World newbies wondering how many kilometres there are in a mile.
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