Most common words in credit union names
July 1, 2008
#1) Employees – 1,553
#2) Community – 526
#3) County – 323
#4) Schools – 279
#5) West – 214
#6) Teachers – 214
#7) City – 199
#8) Postal – 183
#9) First – 179
#10) North – 170
Connection to employees reflected in names
1-in-6 credit unions have the word ‘Employee’ in their name- Over 600 credit unions have ‘School,’ ‘Teachers’ or ‘Educators’ in their name
- 183 have ‘Postal’ in their name
- 157 credit unions have ‘Municipal’ in their name
- 110 credit unions have ‘Health’ in their name
- 108 credit unions have ‘Fire’ in their name
- 73 credit unions have ‘Police’ in their name
‘Community’
- 1-in-16 credit unions use the word ‘Community’ in their name
- 48 credit union names start with ‘Community’
- 10 credit unions share the name ‘Community Credit Union’
- There are 4 ‘Community Choice’ CUs and four others named ‘Community First’
Who’s Number One?
- 161 credit unions use the word ‘One’ or number ‘1’
- 220 credit unions use the word ‘First’ or ‘1st’
- ‘First’ is the first word in 116 credit unions’ name; 25 others us ‘1st’ elsewhere in their names
Geography & Topography
- 393 credit unions use ‘County,’ 199 use ‘City,’141 use ‘State’
- About 100 credit unions use either ‘America,’ ‘American,’ ‘US’ or ‘USA’
- ‘West’ beats ‘East,’ 214 to 100
- ‘North’ beats ‘South,’ 170 to 131
- ‘Pacific’ beats ‘Atlantic,’ 40 to 16
- 141 credit unions use the word ‘Valley’
- 92 use ‘River’
68 use ‘Lake’- 52 use ‘Coast’
- 40 use ‘Hill’
- 39 use ‘Rock’
- 37 use ‘Mountain’
‘Credit Union’ first
- 30 credit unions shun convention by putting ‘Credit Union’ in front of their name instead of at the end, such as the 7 credit unions who share ‘Credit Union One.’
Bottom line: You don’t have to change your credit union’s name just because it contains a commonly-used word. But if you’re going to change the name to something new, you should avoid these words. Using words that are this ubiquitous don’t distinguish you in any way, and they carry significant trademark risks.
Want the full list?
If you’d like the full list of words commonly used by credit unions in their names and the frequency with which they occur, shoot me an email.
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Previous related stories from The Financial Brand:
- The do’s and don’ts of CU acronyms
- The ‘Community Credit Union’ fallacy
- 6 reality checks about credit union community charters
- What does ‘Federal’ do for FCUs?
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Filed Under: CU Naming
Tags: names
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:34 am
Very nice breakdown on naming. I know there are plenty of marketers out there (including myself) who get frustrated with the ways a lot of credit unions are named.
Maybe you could work with CUNA to circulate this post to all credit union CEOs and organizations looking to start a credit union, that way they don’t dig themselves into a hole from the start.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 am
I think a credit union should just go for it and rename themselves “First American Members Coastal Resource East/West Mountain Employees Community River Atlantic Pacific Financial Credit Union of the Southern People’s Northern Credit Union” or FAMCREWMECRAPFCUoSPNCU for short. Kinda has a nice ring, doesn’t it?
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:38 am
Oh jeez, I just realized I left the word Federal out of it. Okay, it should have been 24 words long.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
TFF Morriss. “Totally forgot ‘Federal,’” that is.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
This is a great post. Thanks for compiling all the numbers.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Thanks Mike and Bryan. The Oregon Credit Union League is planning to run a reprint of this article along with a sidebar of how their state’s CUs breakdown.
November 10th, 2008 at 6:42 am
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January 14th, 2010 at 3:22 am
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April 2nd, 2010 at 7:17 am
Is there any Credit Union that you know of that does not use Credit Union in the logo?
April 2nd, 2010 at 11:38 am
It’s quite common in Canada for credit unions to drop “credit union” from their names. Two of the country’s largest (both located in Vancouver, B.C.) have done it. Vancity Credit Union is just simply “Vancity,” and Coast Capital goes by “Coast Capital Savings.”
https://www.vancity.com/
https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/
https://www.envisionfinancial.ca/
http://www.libro.ca/
https://www.interiorsavings.com/ (slogan: “Ways to Bank”)
In the U.S., more and more credit unions are switching to “Financial”:
http://www.xfcu.org/ (notice the use of .org instead of .com)
https://www.trumarkonline.org/ (starting to distance itself from “credit union”)
And some federally chartered credit unions opt to drop “Credit Union”:
http://www.usafed.org/ (slogan: “180° from banking, also uses .org)
https://www.navyfederal.org/ (it still says “Federal Credit Union” in the browser window”)
The Financial Brand ran a story on the options Federally chartered credit unions here:
http://thefinancialbrand.com/294/what-does-‘federal-do-for-fcus/
Apparently there is one credit union marketing itself simply as “Citadel” along with the tagline, “Banking with one focus. You.” However, they have “fcu” in their URL, and also use a .org domain. Odd.
http://www.citadelfcu.org/