Britain has seen the end of a number of famous names this winter, as the credit crunch and golobalisation have taken their toll.

Aviva, a company that sounds like a bus company and a 1970s car, finally announced that it was axing its Norwich Union brand. Aviva regarded NU as parochial and unsuited for a global stage compared with its own brand name, which was dreamed up by a committee some eight years ago. A venerable name follows Midland Bank, Eagle Star and Leeds Permanent Building Society into oblivion. And Bristol & West, another former building society that survived as a shadow of its former glory under Bank of Ireland, until its fate was revealed this week.

Does it matter? No, at least when compared with the agonies of life and death played out in the ruins of Gaza. But life is diminished slightly when a century or more of endeavour is obliterated, often for questionable benefit and empire building.

Many will remember with affection famous names from the past, decades after they died. Take the chemists, Timothy White's. As a child, I loved ringing the doorbells on display in the store, which was bought and renamed by its big rival, Boots. And I enjoyed the fishy aroma of MacFisheries, a fishmongers chain that spread across the country, and the cheesy whiff of David Greig's. All gone, but not forgotten.

I have a closer connection with one lost name: Eagle Star. The old life and general insurance company traced its roots back to the Eagle insurance company of 1807. In the first half of the twentieth century, Eagle Star was a pioneering, even buccaneering company. It invented the modern idea of home insurance, with one policy covering fire, storm and other damage. But it later fell into complacent middle age, and was eventually bought by British American Tobacco, of all companies. In time, BAT decided to stick to tobacco, and Eagle Star was sold to the Swiss insurance group, Zurich. Within a decade, the name was history.

Companies no longer treat their employees as anything other than an asset to be disposed of as they see fit. So it is, perhaps, surprising that the passing of a company's name such as Woolworth is marked with sadness. Or are we mourning the passing of a reminder of a lost age when companies and their staff shared a mutual loyalty and respect?