Big Apple? Or Small Potatoes?

Photograph by Thomas Dworzak/Magnum Photos

What happens when the New York Stock Exchange outgrows New York?

That was one question on the table this morning at the annual shareholder meeting for NYSE Euronext, the parent company of the exchange. As stock trading goes global and exchanges consolidate, the NYSE might want to make sure it doesn't make anyone feel left out.

When the NYSE Group -- itself a name that distanced the exchange from its home in downtown Manhattan -- merged with Euronext earlier this year, it became known as NYSE Euronext, so as not to offend the Europeans.

(Euronext itself is an anodyne and geographically inclusive moniker forged in 2000 after exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris combined.)

Now some people at NYSE -- pronounced NICE-ee -- want to rebrand NYSE Euronext for more global reach: Maybe to something like the World Exchange or the Global Exchange (even if they do sound as if they came from a comic book).

Executives of the exchange said NYSE Euronext is still the strongest name "today," according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. But John Thain, its chief executive, admitted that his "marketing people loved the question" of how it might be improved.

And you never know what will happen once those marketing wheels start turning.

by Megan Barnett