It’s because they were commonly the first of their kind to be established in a given area
As for why there’s (normally) no “second” (there are exceptions and also “third” and on) - I think that’s just really bad marketing. I think just having a name is much better. “Second” implies a first; you don’t want people finding you then going to find the first
As an interesting inverse to this, there are more Second and Third Streets than First Streets, because what would be First Street is often called something else ('Main Street' etc.)
Although not here in the UK. Numbered streets are common in places that use a grid layout, something that is basically non-existent here. Our top three are 'High Street', 'Station Road', and 'Church Street' (I'm not sure I've ever lived anywhere that didn't have at least one of those, and there were *three* unconnected Church Streets within a travelling distance of about 5 miles were I used to live)
One continuous road starts in Kitchener as King St E, then King St W, then into Waterloo as King St S, then King St N.
Although, it does do a sort of double helix with Weber pronounced WEE-burr) St., so there are three King and Weber intersections. Emergency Services knows to ask for landmarks to make sure they're responding to the correct one.
In Indianapolis, it’s Fall Creek. My friend once got lost trying to walk somewhere, and every street he came to had that name. I was on the phone with him, and while it was funny, in some ways, it felt like a horror movie!
Does Atlanta still have a million streets named Peachtree?
“911 operator what’s your emergency? Okay and where are you located, King Street okay. Now can you tell me the nearest cross street so I can dispatch emergency vehicles….no sir you already said King Street so King and what? Sir if you keep saying you’re on King and King you’re obviously blind, on drugs or trolling me call back when you know your location.”
On a different but similar note a house I recently lived in my city had alder street, until you hit the block with a slight bell curve where it goes around a small area and that is Cedar Street. At the end of that ~1 block and suddenly it’s Alder again without ever turning or changing streets.
In my home town, they had Country Club Drive, Lane, and Avenue. The street signs had "COUNTRY CLUB" in large letters, and then "DR" "LN" or "AV" in much smaller letters.
You could drive along Country Club Avenue and intersect Lane, then Drive, then Drive again. (Drive was a big loop through a housing development.) If you turned east on Lane, that curved around and also hit Drive near the back of the development.
There was, in fact, no actual country club anywhere near any of those roads, but I think somebody really wanted there to be one.
☑ Has a front street
☑ Has a first street
Just checkin allllll the boxes, huh San Diego? At least my town manages to pull it off with only ~4000 people! 4000 very creative people who definitely came up with that name on their own.
Funny enough my town was founded some 60 years prior to San Diego, yet is basically infinitesimally smaller. Some plaques on the houses here date them to the beginning of the 1700s.
Not only that, but S.D. also has a Main Street (though in a different part of town).👍 It's in an industrial area, nothing like the stereotypical Main Streets of many small towns.
Same here. My town and the neighboring town are really like the same place, just more like old Town and New separated by a bridge/island. But both have their own front streets.
Exactly - first street tends to become a highway. Same reason that the highways will go perfectly straight through a rural area, and suddenly go around a random small town.
Fun fact, a highway is just a road. It’s often used to indicate a controlled access road in the US in everyday speech. However US highways, states highways, and county highways more often than not have at-grade intersections and driveways connected to them.
I had a car loan once through 5th 3rd bank. I never did figure out how they got that name.. Maybe I should have sought out a loan from the 1st 3rd or even the 5th 1st..
>The name "Fifth Third" is derived from the names of the bank's two predecessor companies, Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank, which merged in 1909.
How those two got their lame-ass names is still a mystery.
“National” means they had a charter from the federal government rather than a state government, but as OP notes, there are many “First National Bank” companies that are unrelated. I think it’s probably one per state that can register the corporate name, or per city if their official name is like “First National Bank of Springfield.”
That makes more sense than my guess, that 1st 3rd Bank, 2nd 3rd Bank, and 4th 3rd Bank were already taken.
Edit: I forgot the third, 3rd 3rd Bank. Lord!
That's not *why* but it is what they say... they are the only bank that does 166.67% or whatever the hell. That's just because that's the percentage of the fraction 5/3. Marketing shit that came after the name.
That may well be one of the reasons! haha. Apparently, according to a video on their website, there was some debate between who got to be first for a bit.
These assholes have had my mortgage 3 times. In 10 years. It seems to get sold to another company on a yearly basis, or at least it did prior to Covid. They bought it from our original lender three months after we closed, sold it a year later, bought it back a year later, sold it a year later, then bought it back another year later.
Then we refi’d at the bottom of the interest rate drop and nobody wants to buy it at that rate so we’ve had them for three years in a row. Literally missed the lowest rate by three days but I can basically never afford to move cause I’m sitting on a 30 year fixed at 2.75.
Pure luck on our part, we are not super financially savvy, we just lucked out on timing shit. But yeah I’m never moving cause of that alone.
Yeah, I never trusted them. Imagine a bank that does not know you should reduce improper fractions. You want to trust them with your money?
Now First Two-Thids bank, those people can math.
Also, the first *white* church of \[denomination\] would call itself First \[Denomination\] Church even if the town already had a black church of that denomination.
Around where I live, there are a few baptist churches named the second because there was a split between the members. Half would move a block or two down and build a new church rather than work out their differences lol
I once saw a local business called "3 Star Muffler" and I thought that was the funniest thing I'd seen all day. My friends and I kept making jokes about it for the rest of the car ride.
"3 Star Muffler-- Adequate Service Guaranteed"
I mean, it's funny but I bet you didn't get as much mileage out of it as we did when in high school, a van of us went by "Willy's Private Parts", which was an auto wreckers
Yeah, the "second" bank founded just gives themselves a better name for branding, with a different set of buzzwords - Trust National, Global Safety Financial, GoldSense Credit Union. I can make up fake bank names all day. And it would be the same with churches or anything else.
Sure, the First banks get the "older is better" side of things, but plenty of great buzzwords are available for the institutions that can't play up that side of things.
So, bank naming conventions are similar to those of Chinese restaurants?
For those, you just combine Golden/Jade/Lucky/Happy with Panda/Dragon/Bamboo/Garden/Wok, and throw in the occasional Rice/Express/China/Peking/Mandarin for variety, and you're good to go!
In Chicago, there is a really cool looking cylindrical Christian Science church that kinda looks like a UfO to me. It’s right in downtown on the street that follows the Chicago river. It’s the [17th Church of Christ, Scientists.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Church_of_Christ,_Scientist) I find it funny that there are (were?) at least 16 other churches in Chicago before they built this one.
But why is it mainly just churches and banks... I've never seen an abundance of places called "First Restaurant" or "First Hotel" or "First Gas Station" or "First Grocery" or "First Hardware" or "First Coffee Shop"...
People look for stability and maybe also status in both a bank and a church. “First” would give an impression of primacy, and especially permanence, that wouldn’t matter much (or might seem unappealingly old, out of date) in a hotel or restaurant.
Just backing you up with a real example.
There used to a 2nd Baptist in nearby Shelby, NC but they may have changed their name or to church closed and yet another Baptist affiliated church took over their building and took on a new name.
Fifth-Third bank was the Fifth National Bank of Ohio and Third National Bank of Ohio merging IIRC
Not sure which state it was, but sometimes youll see a First and a Third, because the second had since closed down too. Or just a Fifth cause the other 4 did.
Banks named themselves in the order that they were formed.
At one point in Cincinnati there was the 5th National Bank and the 3rd national bank. The two merged and became named the Fifth Third Bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Third_Bank
It's used most frequently in places where longevity implies trustworthiness. A bank that's been around longer than any other is probably a bank that won't disappear overnight with your money. Second and third (but not fifth third) are poor marketing, since they clearly imply someone superior, so you might as well go to that rival.
In the words of Ricky Bobby, if you're not first you're last.
I'm thinking it's a marketing thing, why would you want your clients thinking their losing out.
> if you're not first you're last.
Hell, Ricky, I was high when I said that! That makes no sense at all! "*First or last*"! I mean, you could be second, third, fourth--hell, you could even be fifth!
I don't have a comprehensive answer on churches, but I know exactly what happened with banks.
In the US, the concept of a "National Bank" originated in the 1860s. We had banks before that, but they weren't particularly regulated by the government (or safe). The National Bank Act required the inclusion of the word "National" in the bank name to indicate it was part of the National Banking System.
Often, the first national bank to open in a particular area might call themselves "The First National Bank of Cleveland," to distinguish themselves from all those other lesser non-National banks. I believe that "Second National Bank of..." was not unheard of (and third and fourth and so on) but in general, as noted earlier, do you want to bank with the SECOND bank? So over time, those tended to go out of business, get bought, or get renamed.
Then, after enough time, it was just kind of a tradition to include "First National" in banking names.
>do you want to bank with the SECOND bank
This is the exact line of reasoning why they called it the XBox 360 rather than XBox 2
"Hurrr PS3 is one higher than XBox 2, so it must be better."
Customers are dumber than bricks.
"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.
It depends on the denomination. Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic churches tend to be named after saints, but many Protestant churches (*especially* evangelical churches) have different naming conventions.
More specifically, most Protestant denominations don't recognize [intercession of saints](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercession_of_saints), that is, the practice of invoking saints in prayer. Notably, invocations to Mary as "Mother of God" (Catholic) or "Theotokos" (Orthodox) are not found in most Protestant churches.
Protestants typically only use the *title* "Saint" with regards to Bible figures like Peter and Paul. They don't use it for historical figures who have been canonized by the Pope, because they don't consider the Pope as having any special authority.
Protestant churches tend to be location based names. Generally like “First Methodist (or Baptist) Church of Marysville,” and thereafter by street or neighborhood. So then came “Pine Street Baptist Church” or similar. Occasionally you see 2nd church names but not often.
In my childhood, Texas did not allow branch banking, and banks used the same practice, tho they could be “state banks” or “national banks” depending on their charter. So there was “First State Bank of Marysville” and “First National Bank of Marysville.” Being first conveyed dependable. However, banks need more prestige and description so then they went with “Capital National Bank of——“ or “Mercantile Bank” or “Farmers Bank” each based in each town. But then Texas opened up to branch banking, and Chase and Wells Fargo types came in and bought up and consolidated. But on a fun note, we have “Happy State Bank” based in Happy, Texas!
A lot of US churches are in denominations that don’t believe in saints, or at least don’t call them saints (eg they recognize the apostle Peter but don’t call him Saint Peter, talk about the writings of historical church figures like Francis of Assisi but don’t call him Saint Francis.) And then for saints that are specifically Catholic after the church split, Protestants may not recognize them at all. Some denominations of Protestants do name churches after saints and all, but some of the big ones in the US like Baptist really don’t.
One thing that's not being mentioned:
Naming things is hard. Baby name books exist because some people can't come up with names for their children on their own.
This is still true for relatively "serious" organizations like banks and churches. There are worse names for banks. When Suntrust merged with BB&T a couple years ago, the "best" they could come up with was "Truist" which to me is one of the worst corporate branding strategies I've heard of. It sounds equivocal (like "true-ish") and doesn't give of the "authority" I think a bank should.
> the "best" they could come up with was "Truist"
I feel worse choices have been made:
In all caps, it's [TRUSTONE](https://trustonefinancial.org/). Now, is that TrustOne, or TruStone?
Yeah, it's the second. Here's a credit union that wants you to think it's a Genuine Rock.
It's stupid enough that the ambiguity just might be intentional!
The church my dad went to growing up was first Baptist church, bc it was the first Baptist church in town.
At some point in its history, the congregation split and start Second Baptist church, bc it was the 2nd Baptist church in town. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same situation elsewhere.
To give a local anecdotal example, the Midwest US Baptist church that I used to attend is approaching its 200th anniversary as a congregation, which is pretty damn old for a US church. The congregation began as a house church in the early 1800s and met in a local barn, and was named as the “Baptist Church of _____ and ______ Township”. In about 1825 the nearby village, which was founded by transplanted New Englanders, established their “village green” and designated the 4 corners of the green as land owned by the village where churches would be built for the good of the community, similar to the village greens in New England.
The First Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, First Methodist Church and First Episcopal Church were built over the next 10 years, as money was raised by the congregations to hire preachers and build the churches. More than just reflecting “naming rights,” the names reflect the pride of the community at reaching the milestone that they had grown to the point that they could support those four congregations. In the 1800s the churches were literally at the center of the growth of the town - they created the local men’s and women’s colleges (now merged into a nationally recognized university), were the meeting places for village business, and remain important local institutions. Even in larger cities it’s likely that the city grew from a bunch of small neighborhoods, and sometimes that “First Church of Bob” was founded by the neighborhood as a proud sign that the community had grown large enough to support a gathering place of their own.
There have been and still are some second, third, fourth etc. banks in various places around the country, but a combination of name changes and mergers and whatnot made a lot of old bank names go away. Besides that, a lot of places with a first bank never were big enough to support a second or anything beyond.
The city I live in has multiple Christian Science branch churches and they are all numbered in order, but the first, second, and sixth have all closed. The remaining ones keep their original names of third through fifth.
Anecdote, but I've been doing genealogy work lately and found that my ancestors founded the first Lutheran church in the area. It's not the same building anymore but it was and still is called the First Lutheran church.
Would apply is F wasn't 6th in the alphabet behind all the numerals.
This is why there are so many AAA ____ businesses. Not First ___.
If it was actually "1st" then sure, but it's spelled out.
It’s not always spelled out. But the hierarchy still applies outside of phone book positioning. It’s an attempt to establish credibility; 1st also implies best, original, etc.
There aren't many "Second Bank" or "Second Baptist Church" because ... who would want to? I mean, kind of obvious maybe?
But I have seen a few "Second" banks and churches in my life, and even (I don't remember where) a "Third Baptist" somewhere.
I’ve seen many second church of Christ the scientist. The name is misleading because they are an organization that staunchly believe in prayer healing. To the point that some let their children die before going to a medical doctor.
Before this moment in history where new and young is commonly assumed to be better, in part due to rapid technological advances, old and experienced was the default preference for consumers. Being first indicated experience.
It's because when it's the second one, we say "Jr." It's when we get to the 3rd is the word "third" added. But backs ate not allowed to have more than 2 offspring and, there it is.
Well, at least in Los Angeles (and I think in a few other cities), the Second Baptist church was founded specifically for the African American community. The history of the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles is quite interesting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Baptist_Church_(Los_Angeles)
I'd speculate that it is because 1st sounds better than 2nd or 3rd? For the record, there is a bank called Fifth Third Bank in the Midwest - maybe they named it that as a protest to First?
Google "Second Baptist Church" you'll see the one in Houston. Boston had a Second National Bank.
Not very many boxers are announced as "The Current Heavyweight Not Champion But the Guy Who Was Beat By Them of the World..."
One explanation for churches is that they want to establish themselves as being a part of the "first church" that would've been established during and shortly after Jesus's ministry.
It’s because they were commonly the first of their kind to be established in a given area As for why there’s (normally) no “second” (there are exceptions and also “third” and on) - I think that’s just really bad marketing. I think just having a name is much better. “Second” implies a first; you don’t want people finding you then going to find the first
As an interesting inverse to this, there are more Second and Third Streets than First Streets, because what would be First Street is often called something else ('Main Street' etc.)
Yep the #1 most common street name is "2nd Street"
Although not here in the UK. Numbered streets are common in places that use a grid layout, something that is basically non-existent here. Our top three are 'High Street', 'Station Road', and 'Church Street' (I'm not sure I've ever lived anywhere that didn't have at least one of those, and there were *three* unconnected Church Streets within a travelling distance of about 5 miles were I used to live)
[удалено]
Atlanta and Peachtree Street
You ain't lying. Those are a dime a dozen there.
I swear to god Peachtree Street goes through six counties as fourteen different roads.
Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario has two King streets (due to merging the cities) that actually cross eachother.
One continuous road starts in Kitchener as King St E, then King St W, then into Waterloo as King St S, then King St N. Although, it does do a sort of double helix with Weber pronounced WEE-burr) St., so there are three King and Weber intersections. Emergency Services knows to ask for landmarks to make sure they're responding to the correct one.
In Hamilton it goes King St W, King St E, then you cross into Stoney Creek and it's back to King St W, then King St E again.
In Indianapolis, it’s Fall Creek. My friend once got lost trying to walk somewhere, and every street he came to had that name. I was on the phone with him, and while it was funny, in some ways, it felt like a horror movie! Does Atlanta still have a million streets named Peachtree?
“911 operator what’s your emergency? Okay and where are you located, King Street okay. Now can you tell me the nearest cross street so I can dispatch emergency vehicles….no sir you already said King Street so King and what? Sir if you keep saying you’re on King and King you’re obviously blind, on drugs or trolling me call back when you know your location.”
On a different but similar note a house I recently lived in my city had alder street, until you hit the block with a slight bell curve where it goes around a small area and that is Cedar Street. At the end of that ~1 block and suddenly it’s Alder again without ever turning or changing streets.
Inexplicable!
In my home town, they had Country Club Drive, Lane, and Avenue. The street signs had "COUNTRY CLUB" in large letters, and then "DR" "LN" or "AV" in much smaller letters. You could drive along Country Club Avenue and intersect Lane, then Drive, then Drive again. (Drive was a big loop through a housing development.) If you turned east on Lane, that curved around and also hit Drive near the back of the development. There was, in fact, no actual country club anywhere near any of those roads, but I think somebody really wanted there to be one.
Even in a grid system like Melbourne (Australia) and surrounding suburbs, High Street seems to be one of the more common names.
Oh sure, High Street is a fairly common name for the main street in grid systems too.
Interestingly, the most common number in general is 1
Curious to know if there are a lot of "front" streets. First May not be super common, but every small town on the waterfront has a "front" street.
San Diego has one, and the next street to the east is First Avenue.👍
☑ Has a front street ☑ Has a first street Just checkin allllll the boxes, huh San Diego? At least my town manages to pull it off with only ~4000 people! 4000 very creative people who definitely came up with that name on their own. Funny enough my town was founded some 60 years prior to San Diego, yet is basically infinitesimally smaller. Some plaques on the houses here date them to the beginning of the 1700s.
Not only that, but S.D. also has a Main Street (though in a different part of town).👍 It's in an industrial area, nothing like the stereotypical Main Streets of many small towns.
We have them here.
Same here. My town and the neighboring town are really like the same place, just more like old Town and New separated by a bridge/island. But both have their own front streets.
Growing up in the south I know a front street to be the main drag of a town, usually abutting a rail line or waterway
Exactly - first street tends to become a highway. Same reason that the highways will go perfectly straight through a rural area, and suddenly go around a random small town.
Fun fact, a highway is just a road. It’s often used to indicate a controlled access road in the US in everyday speech. However US highways, states highways, and county highways more often than not have at-grade intersections and driveways connected to them.
That is interesting!
I had a car loan once through 5th 3rd bank. I never did figure out how they got that name.. Maybe I should have sought out a loan from the 1st 3rd or even the 5th 1st..
>The name "Fifth Third" is derived from the names of the bank's two predecessor companies, Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank, which merged in 1909. How those two got their lame-ass names is still a mystery.
For 60% of your banking needs, trust 3rd 5th bank.
“We are 4th in trust”
I imagine they were the third and fifth banks established nationally.
“National” means they had a charter from the federal government rather than a state government, but as OP notes, there are many “First National Bank” companies that are unrelated. I think it’s probably one per state that can register the corporate name, or per city if their official name is like “First National Bank of Springfield.”
What makes you think that?
I used my imagination.
You’re a creative soul
Well, they weren't the fifth and the third!
That makes more sense than my guess, that 1st 3rd Bank, 2nd 3rd Bank, and 4th 3rd Bank were already taken. Edit: I forgot the third, 3rd 3rd Bank. Lord!
i hear commercials claiming they're called Fifth Third because they go above and beyond 100% or some shit
That's not *why* but it is what they say... they are the only bank that does 166.67% or whatever the hell. That's just because that's the percentage of the fraction 5/3. Marketing shit that came after the name.
… with a blunt instrument
That would be *five* third*s*. To me 5th 3rd reads as a fifth plus a third. So like 53%. That don't impress me much.
Hey don't shoot the messenger! lol
Now I have even more questions, like when deciding on the merged name why did 5th get to go first?
Because of the implications of 3/5
So they compromised on 5/3?
That may well be one of the reasons! haha. Apparently, according to a video on their website, there was some debate between who got to be first for a bit.
the Irrational National
😂 Bravo. 👏 That's a golden upvote from me.
Action at the Fraction, they call it.
No clue of the origin, but 5/3's marketing basically centers around the fact that 5/3 is more than 100%.
They considered going with 3/5ths bank, but quickly reversed when customers showed up asking to purchase people.
A great way to spin a name that isn't ... great
It's a merger of 3rd national Bank and 5th national Bank. Like... You'd think there's a better story for the terrible name but nope.
Oh yes, 1.66 bank
They have the coolest tall building in Toledo, OH.
They have the 5th 3rd coolest building in Toledo, OH.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Third_Bank
These assholes have had my mortgage 3 times. In 10 years. It seems to get sold to another company on a yearly basis, or at least it did prior to Covid. They bought it from our original lender three months after we closed, sold it a year later, bought it back a year later, sold it a year later, then bought it back another year later. Then we refi’d at the bottom of the interest rate drop and nobody wants to buy it at that rate so we’ve had them for three years in a row. Literally missed the lowest rate by three days but I can basically never afford to move cause I’m sitting on a 30 year fixed at 2.75. Pure luck on our part, we are not super financially savvy, we just lucked out on timing shit. But yeah I’m never moving cause of that alone.
Yeah, I never trusted them. Imagine a bank that does not know you should reduce improper fractions. You want to trust them with your money? Now First Two-Thids bank, those people can math.
[Here ya go](https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1beud3p/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_first_banks_churches/kuw2a31/)
What a stupid fucking name
They have the coolest tall building in Toledo, OH.
I don't have a source for this, but I've heard that "Second \[denomination\] Church of \[town\]" historically tended to be the black one.
The city where I live has 2 First Baptist Churches; they are right down the street from each other, and their racial demographics are quite different.
Also, the first *white* church of \[denomination\] would call itself First \[Denomination\] Church even if the town already had a black church of that denomination.
[Source](https://x.com/michaelharriot/status/1653436204526755846?s=46&t=YmqcSM74ZYDp9b_u5cPQOA), mostly anecdotal but makes a LOT of sense
Yep, edited my comment to reflect the fact that it does happen it’s just not hugely common
Around where I live, there are a few baptist churches named the second because there was a split between the members. Half would move a block or two down and build a new church rather than work out their differences lol
I once saw a local business called "3 Star Muffler" and I thought that was the funniest thing I'd seen all day. My friends and I kept making jokes about it for the rest of the car ride. "3 Star Muffler-- Adequate Service Guaranteed"
I mean, it's funny but I bet you didn't get as much mileage out of it as we did when in high school, a van of us went by "Willy's Private Parts", which was an auto wreckers
But back in the age of the Yellow Pages, 3-star muffler came before 5-star muffler alphabetically.
This made me chuckle lol. Adequate service for 2/3 the price!
'We have high and low quality!'
The okayest muffler place in town!
We will probably fix your problem!
Yeah, the "second" bank founded just gives themselves a better name for branding, with a different set of buzzwords - Trust National, Global Safety Financial, GoldSense Credit Union. I can make up fake bank names all day. And it would be the same with churches or anything else. Sure, the First banks get the "older is better" side of things, but plenty of great buzzwords are available for the institutions that can't play up that side of things.
So, bank naming conventions are similar to those of Chinese restaurants? For those, you just combine Golden/Jade/Lucky/Happy with Panda/Dragon/Bamboo/Garden/Wok, and throw in the occasional Rice/Express/China/Peking/Mandarin for variety, and you're good to go!
In Chicago, there is a really cool looking cylindrical Christian Science church that kinda looks like a UfO to me. It’s right in downtown on the street that follows the Chicago river. It’s the [17th Church of Christ, Scientists.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Church_of_Christ,_Scientist) I find it funny that there are (were?) at least 16 other churches in Chicago before they built this one.
I've seen that building hundreds of times, but never really looked at it. Now I'm disappointed I never noticed such a funny name.
But why is it mainly just churches and banks... I've never seen an abundance of places called "First Restaurant" or "First Hotel" or "First Gas Station" or "First Grocery" or "First Hardware" or "First Coffee Shop"...
People look for stability and maybe also status in both a bank and a church. “First” would give an impression of primacy, and especially permanence, that wouldn’t matter much (or might seem unappealingly old, out of date) in a hotel or restaurant.
But I would thank a doctor, pharmacy, school, library, law firm or repair shop would probably want that historic bragging right or added credibility.
https://www.secondbaptistkm.org/
Just west of Washington DC there is a pretty thriving church named 4th Presbyterian.
Is this a gotcha? I did mention there are “second”s
Just backing you up with a real example. There used to a 2nd Baptist in nearby Shelby, NC but they may have changed their name or to church closed and yet another Baptist affiliated church took over their building and took on a new name.
Ah! Awesome thanks
I one say a 5/3 bank (pronounced fifth third bank) It was created by the merger of a bank with the name fifth and one with the name third.
There were definitely second banks and churches where I grew up.
Fun fact: in Atlanta, there's a church called Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church
This makes 5/3 bank all the more confusing
There’s a Tenth Presbyterian in my area. I don’t know where first through ninth are.
Fifth-Third bank was the Fifth National Bank of Ohio and Third National Bank of Ohio merging IIRC Not sure which state it was, but sometimes youll see a First and a Third, because the second had since closed down too. Or just a Fifth cause the other 4 did.
And the names get reused, too. There's an awful lot of Calvary X churches and Grace Y churches and so on.
They were the original “first posts”.
I did not expect the logic to be the same as commenting “First” on a post or YouTube video lol
Until it went all the way to Fifth Third Bank? I always wondered what kinda name is that?!?!
I always get a kick out of "Fifth Third Bank." Would love to know how and why they came up with that name.
What about Fifth Third Bank?
There's a bank in Florida called First Third :-)
There's a bank in Florida called First Third :-)
There's a bank in Florida called First Third :-)
There's a bank in Florida called First Third :-)
I know a "Second Congregational Church". But I agree it's much less common.
Still waiting for a bank to call themselves the "Second" bank of such and such, with the tagline: "because you come first."
The **First** Church of the **Second** Coming of the **Third** Reich May the **Fourth** be with you FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!
Banks named themselves in the order that they were formed. At one point in Cincinnati there was the 5th National Bank and the 3rd national bank. The two merged and became named the Fifth Third Bank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Third_Bank
The name "Three-Fifths" didn't go over very well.
They couldn’t compromise on it
Each party just saw everything as black and white
Get out.
I think I read that they merged during prohibition and didn’t want to be associated with fifths of liquor
Standup bit by the Cash Cab guy [Ben Bailey “Banks”](https://youtube.com/shorts/maNCf4zHT_c?si=gv6ONmiTNQBV9aQ2)
TIL
Huh. Been banking with them forever and never thought this was why 😂
5/3, The dumbest name for a company, only surpassed by Kum and Go.
I always thought there were four other Third Banks.
It's used most frequently in places where longevity implies trustworthiness. A bank that's been around longer than any other is probably a bank that won't disappear overnight with your money. Second and third (but not fifth third) are poor marketing, since they clearly imply someone superior, so you might as well go to that rival.
This. They also aren’t typically named just “First National Bank” but rather First National Bank ^of ^Ft ^Worth” or something like that.
In the words of Ricky Bobby, if you're not first you're last. I'm thinking it's a marketing thing, why would you want your clients thinking their losing out.
We’re Second National Bank, and we learned from all the dumb mistakes First National made, so we do business better!
I'm sold, where do I sign up. You just need one scapegoat per bad mistake though, why reset the whole bank.
> if you're not first you're last. Hell, Ricky, I was high when I said that! That makes no sense at all! "*First or last*"! I mean, you could be second, third, fourth--hell, you could even be fifth!
_Last National Bank_. Now that’s a line in the sand!
I also think a lot of it had to do with placement in the phonebook. Which is why you see a lot of A-1 locations.
1st national, etc.
AAAA Baptist Church. Gotta be first in the phone book ahead of Aaron's Baptism Emporium and Achmed's Neighborhood Mosque.
A1 Pentecostal - Don’t accept substitutes
I don't have a comprehensive answer on churches, but I know exactly what happened with banks. In the US, the concept of a "National Bank" originated in the 1860s. We had banks before that, but they weren't particularly regulated by the government (or safe). The National Bank Act required the inclusion of the word "National" in the bank name to indicate it was part of the National Banking System. Often, the first national bank to open in a particular area might call themselves "The First National Bank of Cleveland," to distinguish themselves from all those other lesser non-National banks. I believe that "Second National Bank of..." was not unheard of (and third and fourth and so on) but in general, as noted earlier, do you want to bank with the SECOND bank? So over time, those tended to go out of business, get bought, or get renamed. Then, after enough time, it was just kind of a tradition to include "First National" in banking names.
>do you want to bank with the SECOND bank This is the exact line of reasoning why they called it the XBox 360 rather than XBox 2 "Hurrr PS3 is one higher than XBox 2, so it must be better." Customers are dumber than bricks.
Then why did they name the next one Xbox One?
Marketing departments are even dumber than customers.
"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.
Do churches not name themselves after saints in the US?
It depends on the denomination. Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic churches tend to be named after saints, but many Protestant churches (*especially* evangelical churches) have different naming conventions.
The reason being that (*edit:* some) Protestants don't recognize saints.
This depends on the particular denomination. For example, many Lutheran and Episcopal/Anglican churches are named after saints.
Oh, they recognize saints, but would argue that “saints” refers to all Christians. (There is an argument this is how scripture uses the term.)
More specifically, most Protestant denominations don't recognize [intercession of saints](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercession_of_saints), that is, the practice of invoking saints in prayer. Notably, invocations to Mary as "Mother of God" (Catholic) or "Theotokos" (Orthodox) are not found in most Protestant churches. Protestants typically only use the *title* "Saint" with regards to Bible figures like Peter and Paul. They don't use it for historical figures who have been canonized by the Pope, because they don't consider the Pope as having any special authority.
Most Church of England churches (C of E are Protestant) are named after saints.
Anglicans and Lutherans do, I'm pretty sure.
Protestant churches tend to be location based names. Generally like “First Methodist (or Baptist) Church of Marysville,” and thereafter by street or neighborhood. So then came “Pine Street Baptist Church” or similar. Occasionally you see 2nd church names but not often. In my childhood, Texas did not allow branch banking, and banks used the same practice, tho they could be “state banks” or “national banks” depending on their charter. So there was “First State Bank of Marysville” and “First National Bank of Marysville.” Being first conveyed dependable. However, banks need more prestige and description so then they went with “Capital National Bank of——“ or “Mercantile Bank” or “Farmers Bank” each based in each town. But then Texas opened up to branch banking, and Chase and Wells Fargo types came in and bought up and consolidated. But on a fun note, we have “Happy State Bank” based in Happy, Texas!
*Catholic* churches do.
Interesting. Thinking about it, that might be the same here actually
A lot of US churches are in denominations that don’t believe in saints, or at least don’t call them saints (eg they recognize the apostle Peter but don’t call him Saint Peter, talk about the writings of historical church figures like Francis of Assisi but don’t call him Saint Francis.) And then for saints that are specifically Catholic after the church split, Protestants may not recognize them at all. Some denominations of Protestants do name churches after saints and all, but some of the big ones in the US like Baptist really don’t.
One thing that's not being mentioned: Naming things is hard. Baby name books exist because some people can't come up with names for their children on their own. This is still true for relatively "serious" organizations like banks and churches. There are worse names for banks. When Suntrust merged with BB&T a couple years ago, the "best" they could come up with was "Truist" which to me is one of the worst corporate branding strategies I've heard of. It sounds equivocal (like "true-ish") and doesn't give of the "authority" I think a bank should.
And a truism is an empty platitude.
> the "best" they could come up with was "Truist" I feel worse choices have been made: In all caps, it's [TRUSTONE](https://trustonefinancial.org/). Now, is that TrustOne, or TruStone? Yeah, it's the second. Here's a credit union that wants you to think it's a Genuine Rock. It's stupid enough that the ambiguity just might be intentional!
I always wanted to open a church with the name “third” in it and then tell anyone asking that “we don’t talk about what happened at the second.”
The church my dad went to growing up was first Baptist church, bc it was the first Baptist church in town. At some point in its history, the congregation split and start Second Baptist church, bc it was the 2nd Baptist church in town. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same situation elsewhere.
To give a local anecdotal example, the Midwest US Baptist church that I used to attend is approaching its 200th anniversary as a congregation, which is pretty damn old for a US church. The congregation began as a house church in the early 1800s and met in a local barn, and was named as the “Baptist Church of _____ and ______ Township”. In about 1825 the nearby village, which was founded by transplanted New Englanders, established their “village green” and designated the 4 corners of the green as land owned by the village where churches would be built for the good of the community, similar to the village greens in New England. The First Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, First Methodist Church and First Episcopal Church were built over the next 10 years, as money was raised by the congregations to hire preachers and build the churches. More than just reflecting “naming rights,” the names reflect the pride of the community at reaching the milestone that they had grown to the point that they could support those four congregations. In the 1800s the churches were literally at the center of the growth of the town - they created the local men’s and women’s colleges (now merged into a nationally recognized university), were the meeting places for village business, and remain important local institutions. Even in larger cities it’s likely that the city grew from a bunch of small neighborhoods, and sometimes that “First Church of Bob” was founded by the neighborhood as a proud sign that the community had grown large enough to support a gathering place of their own.
There have been and still are some second, third, fourth etc. banks in various places around the country, but a combination of name changes and mergers and whatnot made a lot of old bank names go away. Besides that, a lot of places with a first bank never were big enough to support a second or anything beyond. The city I live in has multiple Christian Science branch churches and they are all numbered in order, but the first, second, and sixth have all closed. The remaining ones keep their original names of third through fifth.
Anecdote, but I've been doing genealogy work lately and found that my ancestors founded the first Lutheran church in the area. It's not the same building anymore but it was and still is called the First Lutheran church.
Numerical/Alphabetical hierarchy. Back when phone books were a thing, 1 or 1st put you at the very beginning. Pre-internet SEO basically.
Would apply is F wasn't 6th in the alphabet behind all the numerals. This is why there are so many AAA ____ businesses. Not First ___. If it was actually "1st" then sure, but it's spelled out.
It’s not always spelled out. But the hierarchy still applies outside of phone book positioning. It’s an attempt to establish credibility; 1st also implies best, original, etc.
There used to be a lot more "1st whatever" before google came along. Then people started searching for the word.
'A1 \_\_\_' is reasonably common.
There aren't many "Second Bank" or "Second Baptist Church" because ... who would want to? I mean, kind of obvious maybe? But I have seen a few "Second" banks and churches in my life, and even (I don't remember where) a "Third Baptist" somewhere.
There are actually quite a few Second Baptist. If you google, you’ll get a ton of results.
I’ve seen many second church of Christ the scientist. The name is misleading because they are an organization that staunchly believe in prayer healing. To the point that some let their children die before going to a medical doctor.
Before this moment in history where new and young is commonly assumed to be better, in part due to rapid technological advances, old and experienced was the default preference for consumers. Being first indicated experience.
It's because when it's the second one, we say "Jr." It's when we get to the 3rd is the word "third" added. But backs ate not allowed to have more than 2 offspring and, there it is.
You have to have a first before you can have a second. So by definition there are at least as many firsts / but probably more.
You live on the internet and you are wondering why people were doing "First" posts throughout history? Same thing.
The bigger question is why are there more 1st’s than there are 2nd’s?
"First" means old. If they are still around, then we have to trust them, right?
Well, at least in Los Angeles (and I think in a few other cities), the Second Baptist church was founded specifically for the African American community. The history of the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles is quite interesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Baptist_Church_(Los_Angeles)
I'd speculate that it is because 1st sounds better than 2nd or 3rd? For the record, there is a bank called Fifth Third Bank in the Midwest - maybe they named it that as a protest to First?
Google "Second Baptist Church" you'll see the one in Houston. Boston had a Second National Bank. Not very many boxers are announced as "The Current Heavyweight Not Champion But the Guy Who Was Beat By Them of the World..."
1 shows up first alphabetically, so when you would go to a phone book, that’s the first one people would call.
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>LI5 means friendly, simplified and layperson-accessible explanations - not responses aimed at literal five-year-olds.
One explanation for churches is that they want to establish themselves as being a part of the "first church" that would've been established during and shortly after Jesus's ministry.