Van Eck Global's Market Vectors family of exchange-traded funds has erased the Lehman name from its municipal bond portfolios.

The shortened names for the muni bond ETFs coincide with a stock split already completed on the funds. The company hopes the moves will simplify marketing and increase the attractiveness of the funds.

The underlying Lehman indexes will continue to be used, and there will be no change to the ETFs' investment objectives, but the once-veritable bond-based brand of the now-extinct bank has disappeared from the marketed names of the ETFs.

The Lehman index group is now part of Barclays Capital as a result of the British bank's purchase of bankrupt Lehman.

Adam Phillips, managing director of Market Vectors, said in an interview with IU.com on Monday that the change in the names was unrelated to any fears that there might be negative association with Lehman among investors.

"We wanted to simplify the names, and now given that Lehman was folded into another company, it made sense. But the main emphasis in the change is to highlight the different points on the yield curve offered by the three ETFs," Phillips said.

The changes to the ETFs are as follows:

Market Vectors launched the family of muni bond funds to exploit the lack of similar portfolios in the ETF market. The choice of short, intermediate and long muni funds, AMT-free and investing on a national basis, made for a unique product launch. Still, the Market Vectors ETFs are better known for global and commodities-themed portfolios. Market Vectors ETFs had a total of $4.8 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2008. MLN had $21.4 million in assets; ITM had $29.3 million; and SMB had $12.2 million, as of Sept. 30.

     -- this article was submitted by Eric Rosenbaum