Holbrook Cooperative Bank is celebrating a branch opening in Brockton on Oct. 21, but the bank is taking the unusual – and, some say, risky – move of giving its new branch a completely different name.

Holbrook and Brockton are next door to each other, but the towns have some striking differences: Holbrook residents are mostly white and were born in Massachusetts. In Brockton, nearly 20 percent of residents were born outside the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Would-be bank customers from Brockton would look at a “Holbrook Cooperative” sign, shrug, and figure it had nothing to do with them – that, at least, was the reasoning behind titling the new branch “Liberty Bank,” said bank General Manager Mario Vicente.

Vicente, himself a native Cape Verdean, said Holbrook Cooperative was interested in picking up business from the largely “underbanked” community of immigrant small-business owners. “Liberty” is a more universal name, while Holbrook itself still has its hometown bank’s name.

The Reviews Are In

The idea got a mix of reviews from local bank marketing experts.

“I’ve seen banks do it. Do I think it’s the right thing to do? No,” said Peter Harvey, head of Hingham-based marketing association Intellidyn.

Harvey couldn’t recall any local examples of banks that had done the same but, in general, putting a different name on the branch dilutes the bank’s brand. It’s important for customers to build an awareness of a bank, and that’s harder to do with different names.

Besides, customers want to do business with a community bank, and “Liberty Bank” is generic enough to lose the important, close-to-home feel, he said. Banks such as Danversbank, Middlesex Savings and Bank of Canton have branched out successfully while maintaining their place-names.

However, Bill Bannon of Sudbury-based marketing research firm Bannon & Co. was more optimistic. The community-based names on banks are indeed a holdover of olden times when banks simply kept to their own communities and didn’t stray far, he said.

And while it’s true place-names carry connotations and something simple – like, say, if the town is known as a hard-scrabble place, or if the high school football team is your town’s team rival – can make potential customers less likely to walk in the door.

Some institutions have changed their names successfully, Bannon said, noting that HarborOne Credit Union was once called Brockton Credit Union, for example.

Vicente says the title “Liberty Bank” also resonates more strongly with an immigrant community looking for new opportunity in America.

“It certainly has to do with the American dream,” he said.