NEW YORK -- AOL and Time Warner got married at the height of the Internet boom, and now they seem ready to acknowledge that it's time for a separation -- in name, at least.

AOL Time Warner Inc.'s board will vote today on a proposal to drop "AOL" from the company's name, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Company spokeswoman Mia Carbonnell declined to comment.

Dropping AOL would be an acknowledgment that the grand hopes behind the merger of old and new media giants have failed.

Veterans from the Time Warner side of the conglomerate have long pressed for the name change as problems mounted at America Online, which used its high-flying shares to buy Time Warner at the height of the Internet bubble in early 2000.

AOL Time Warner's stock has plummeted since the merger was announced, erasing some $200 billion in value.

Several key architects of the deal have left the company under pressure, including top AOL executives Steve Case and Bob Pittman.

But the company gave no indication it would consider a name change until last month, when it said the head of AOL, which is now just a division of AOL Time Warner, personally appealed to chief executive Richard Parsons that the AOL name be dropped.

Jonathan Miller, the head of the America Online division, told his staff in an e-mail memo in August that he was pressing for the change because the term "AOL" had become shorthand for the entire media and entertainment company rather than for the online division he ran.

"I believe it's time for us to get our brand back," Miller said in his note.

A decision to change the name would have several implications, including on the nearly completed 80-story, twin-tower Manhattan structure currently billed as the AOL Time Warner Center.

The company also would drop "AOL" as its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, reverting to its former symbol of "TWX."

At the time of the merger, AOL was seen as a catalyst to transform the traditional media properties of Time Warner like People magazine, HBO and Warner Music Group for the Internet age. Now, AOL is merely a division within the larger AOL Time Warner conglomerate, and a troubled one at that.

America Online's troubles have mounted since the merger was announced. Online advertising slumped, subscribers abandoned AOL for faster or cheaper ways to connect to the Internet and AOL's aggressive bookkeeping practices have been called into question and are still being investigated by federal regulators.