Wells Fargo and Suntrust are well-known banks, too.

Official name "SunTrust Bank", owned by "SunTrust Banks, Inc."

Official name "Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." owned by "Wells Fargo & Company".

That's precisely the point vaporstun was making — we commonly omit the "Bank" from those names because it's seen as redundant.

But I was replying to tdoggette not vaporstun, who was making (I think) the opposite point.

So my response was to point out that actually the banks we think of as not having "bank" in the name do, and it hasn't stopped us from referring to them without it. So if they stuck with Bank Simple, it would help people initially understand what they do, then once (if) they become a household name, people could refer to them as "Simple".

Of course, this is all ignoring the whole legislation stuff.

Many banks in the UK are referred to, and understood, in everyday language without the "bank": Barclays, Halifax, Natwest, Santander, Lloyds to name a few.

I think an important difference is that those are relatively unique words, unlike Simple, which is common and ambiguous.

Telling someone that you have your money in a simple account doesn't convey as much meaning as telling someone you have your money in a Barclay's account.

That's a very good point well put. "Simple account" might even be a description of the level of account you have, causing further confusion.

Colloquially, they're "B of A".

That's true in the Bay Area at least, but not necessarily everywhere. Back when I was their customer I recall visiting NYC, and asking several random strangers if they knew where I could find a "B of A", and none of them knew what I was talking about, until I clarified, "Bank of America".

I'm a New Yorker and I know what you mean by "B of A," as do many of the people I know. I think we're both dealing with small anecdotal data sets here, though.

That could also depend on when he visited. NYC is still ruled by Chase - there's one almost every other block, whereas I struggle to find BofA ATMs.

And I call it "bowfah" myself.

"America" sounds so much better!