You’ll see banks called “First National Bank of X”, or the “First Baptist Church of Y”. A bank or church, with the exact same name, will also exist somewhere else. I live and have traveled all over the US (specifically the Bible Belt) for years now and I’ve noticed this trend.
What gives? Maybe the answer is really obvious and I can’t put it together.
Edit: How come you almost never see the “Second National Bank/Church of X/Y”?
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“Springfield Baptist Church” is fine up until Springfield gets big enough to need two Baptist churches. Then they have to disambiguate.
An easy way to do this is to adopt the “First,” because, well… they were the first, and “first” is a word that generally has a good connotation (think “first prize”). In fact, you can call yourself “First” even before there is a Second, because you’re *already* the first. It’s especially valuable if you’re in a field where reliability over time is valued, such as… well, banking or religion.
You can call yourself the “Second Whatever of Springfield,” and some organizations either do or historically did, but it doesn’t have the cachet of prestige that being “First” does. If you’re competing for clients or for butts in pews, shouting “We’re number two!” is not necessarily the best way to do that. More likely, if you’re second, you might name yourself after the neighborhood in which you’re established (e.g. Lyon Estates Baptist Church, for one in Marty McFly’s area in *Back to the Future*, as opposed to Hill Valley First Baptist), or use some other naming scheme, and you’re also more likely *to* change your name *from* “Second/Third/etc. X of Y” if you started out that way.
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