The man running Nortel’s Enterprise Networking Solutions division wants to resurrect the Bay Networks name to underscore the pedigree of its corporate infrastructure products.

“The more independently I can run this business and take it back to its roots and make Bay Networks exist again, the more effective and focused we are going to be,” says John McHugh, vice president and general manager of the Nortel enterprise division. “I would like Nortel to reincarnate Bay Networks.”

The name change is legally possible because Nortel still trademark by virtue of buying the company in 1998 for $9.1 billion, he says.

Whether that happens relies on the fate of the enterprise division, which could be sold to an existing business or spun off independently. Then it would be up to the new ownership to decide about the name change, McHugh says. “It’s edgy, it’s fraught with some risk, but customers say, I’ve been buying your products since you were Bay Networks,” he says. “If there is a transaction, the future owners should seriously consider that.”