As if the pace of changes in the banking industry weren’t brisk enough, consider the raft of name changes occurring at Massachusetts banks lately.

Hyde Park Savings Bank has decided to change its name to Blue Hills Bank. Cape Cod Co-operative Bank has changed its name to The Co-operative Bank of Cape Cod. Citizens~Union Savings Bank recently announced it will now go by BayCoast Savings. When Adams Co-operative Bank and South Adams Savings Bank complete their planned merger, the resulting new bank will also have a new name.

That’s not to mention Sovereign Bank, which after officially moving its U.S. headquarters to Boston over the summer, is now looking forward to taking the name of its Spanish corporate parent, banking giant Banco Santander.

Rolls off the tongue, no?

For some of these banks, a name change, at least on the surface, is easy. Many a corporate giant has taken up the task of re-branding its subsidiaries in order to achieve a recognizable, uniform market identity.

For others, it takes a lot of time and thought. How will customers react? How will the competition react? Will the competition react?

Who Are You?

A “simple” name change may sound minor, but names are critical to bank brand awareness and perception, arguably the most important aspect an institution should consider when attempting to grow and diversify, marketing experts told Banker & Tradesman. Even those not considering a name change would be wise to inform themselves of their current name’s perceptions.

“You better find out the awareness of your current name and the perceptions of the name,” said Bill Bannon, founder of Sudbury-based bank marketing and market research firm Bannon & Co. “It better communicate who you are.”

Bannon said he’s seen market research for banks that suggest people sometimes find names “objectionable.” He said deciding on a new name is especially important for banks looking to grow into new markets or looking to attract new customers within existing markets. Something as seemingly trivial as local high school sports rivalries can help make a bank named for a certain town a failure in a nearby community.

It’s a tricky task, Bannon said, because there’s no certain winning formula. He relayed an old marketing tale about a bank trying to decide on a new name by writing all of the possible words in its new name on a blackboard. After erasing all of the words it didn’t like, the bank was left with the name “The Bank.”

“If four out of 10 people have a problem with your name, should you do something about it?” Bannon said. “I’ve seen bigger problems with the new name.”

For Charles O’Brien, president and CEO of South Adams Savings Bank, the decision to name the bank that will result from the merger of his institution with Adams Co-operative is not an easy one.

“We share a hometown, and we’re trying to honor our heritage going back to the 1800s,” he told Banker & Tradesman. Still, growth beyond Adams is the goal of the merger and the two institutions are considering names that are more recognizable to potential customers throughout Berkshire County, he said.

The banks conducted an online survey about a new name, and they’re working with a few possibilities, including Taconic Bank, after the mountain range that runs through the western portions of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.

Enough To Be Subtle

Likewise, Hyde Park’s decision to change its name to Blue Hills coincides with efforts to transform itself from a small bank serving parts of Boston and its immediate suburbs to a growing, more recognizable presence in the market.

When Hyde Park, a mutual bank, announced the change, President and CEO William Parent said it aspires to the kind of success Eastern Bank, the largest mutual bank based in Massachusetts, has had.

Others are more conceptual.

In 2007, when Hudson Savings Bank merged with Westborough Bank, the combined institution was named Avidia Bank.

Executives at the time said the name was a combination of the words “avid” and “idea” and that it took months of work with a consultant to come up with the name.

The change to The Co-operative Bank of Cape Cod was a little subtler for the folks at the bank formerly known as Cape Cod Co-operative Bank.

It, too, used a consultant, who worked on the bank’s marketing strategy for 18 months. Then, it hired John Fulone as chief marketing officer.

Fulone set about conducting a “brand benchmarking study” and found that the bank’s customers were loyal but the bank was relatively unknown beyond its existing customer base.

The word “cooperative” was also important for customers, Fulone said.

“We wanted to leverage the word ‘cooperative.’ We have to tell our story more broadly, but we do not want to alienate our loyal customer base,” Fulone said. “We want to signal to the marketplace that something new is happening.”

The bank unveiled its new name at its 90th anniversary celebration and changed its name – on everything from signs to stationery – over one weekend.

The new name, Fulone said, moves from “a legal type of bank to the way we do business. To an outsider it’s a subtle change. We think it was just enough change.”