Of the many, many medical dotcom businesses, WebMD (technically, a health information portal) survived. And thrived. And because they’ve existed for several years, they built some brand equity.

Now, the folks at WebMD have decided to throw all that intangible brand equity and start all over again with a new name: Emdeon.

Their reasoning? Economics. Parent WebMD is spinning off WebMD Health Holdings in a $100 million IPO.

WebMD Health will change its name after the offering but will retain WebMD in its new name. Meanwhile, the parent company, a health services provider, will find itself a new name that does not include WebMD.

According to the company:

“In choosing the name, we looked for a name that we could own and to which we could assign our own meaning and vision… Our new name, Emdeon, references our history as WebMD and formerly, Healtheon. It also suggests our grounding in e-healthcare.”

It’s true, they can own Emdeon because it’s one of those made-up Greek/Latinate names, like Aquient or Raytheon and those are the easiest names to trademark, own and acquire the URL for.

The play on MD combined with ‘eon,’ might make you think it’s a statement about physicians through the ages (admittedly a stretch). But really though, it’s an emotionally void name that will require a great deal of marketing to build up the brand equity that WebMD already possessed.

At least WebMD.com will continue to provide health information.