Who Wrote 'By Any Other Name' And What Inspired It?

When I first saw that phrase my brain immediately went to detective mode: there’s no obvious, famous author tied to the odd repetition 'my name is my name is' that I can recall being trademarked. But memory isn’t research, and trademarks live in databases, not fandom forums. If you want to check this properly, start with the USPTO’s TESS search for the exact string and then try variations (dropping the extra 'is', different punctuation, stylized versions). Also scan the WIPO Global Brand Database and EUIPO’s eSearch if you want international coverage. Keep in mind a trademark protects use in commerce for particular goods or services, not the phrase in isolation the way copyright protects text. Titles of single creative works (like a single book) often don’t qualify for trademark, but series titles, logos, and merchandising phrases can be registered. I’d also Google the phrase in quotes, search social media, and check major merch sites—sometimes common-law usage shows up there. If you find an exact live registration, that’s a bright signal; if not, it could still be used informally without registration. If this is for your project, consider a lawyer for a clearance opinion, but a quick database sweep will tell you a lot.

I still get a thrill when a crowd starts chanting something weird online, and the 'my name is my name is' bit is one of those weirdly catchy things. For me it stems from a few places at once. There's the obvious musical origin — Eminem's 'My Name Is' (and the similar cadence in 'The Real Slim Shady') made the phrase stick in people's heads, and when fans clip or loop that line it becomes a rhythmic hook that works perfectly for memes and remixes. Beyond the music, repetition in memes serves a social purpose: it's a quick, almost tribal way to signal belonging. When people spam 'my name is my name is' under a post or in a comment thread, it's less about the literal meaning and more about joining a joke, echoing a beat, or hyping a reveal. I remember at a small meetup someone blasted a looped sample and half the room started shouting along — it turned a private earworm into a shared moment. That same energy translates online, where short, repeatable chunks of audio or text spread fastest. If you're seeing it a lot, try leaning into it — remix it, make a gag reveal, or just enjoy the chorus of strangers doing the same dumb thing at once.

I got sucked into this trend late one night scrolling and laughing, and what I found interesting was how organic it felt. Broadly, the 'my name is' trend on TikTok seems to have crystallized when a catchy audio—either a clipped line from Eminem's 'My Name Is' or a creator-made riff that echoed that phrase—met a simple visual template: say “my name is” (sometimes twice), snap, then reveal something unexpected. One creator made a neat timing edit where the second “my name is” hit right when a costume or pet popped into frame, and then other people copied with pets, cosplay reveals, character swaps, and even plant collections. From there the platform did the usual amplification: the audio got a “Use this sound” page, creators stitched or duetted the funniest ones, and influencers and teens added variations — spooky versions, wholesome versions, and ironic versions. That mix of familiarity (the phrase), surprise (the reveal), and remixability is what pushed it from one viral clip to a full-blown trend. I still laugh every time someone uses the same beat drop for a totally different reveal, and I keep thinking about trying my own twist on it next weekend.

I still get a kick thinking about how many times I've stumbled onto weird and wonderful takes of 'My Name Is' while doom-scrolling YouTube late at night. There are loads of covers — everything from stripped-down acoustic vocal renditions to full-on metal, jazz, and orchestral rearrangements. People love flipping the whole vibe: some performers turn the sarcastic, bouncy original into a melancholy ballad, others speed it up into punk rock or layer it with synths for an electronic remix. On streaming platforms and YouTube you'll find both fan-made covers and live performances from singers who put their own spin on the flow and cadence. There are also remixes and mashups that fold 'My Name Is' into EDM drops or pair the hook with other rap verses. If you want to hunt them down, try searching for ‘‘My Name Is’ cover acoustic’, ‘‘’My Name Is’ metal cover’, or ‘‘’My Name Is’ jazz version’ on YouTube and Spotify. I’ve found that small creators often add the most interesting twists — some slow it down and sing the hook, others rework the beat entirely. It's a fun rabbit hole if you're in the mood for creative reinterpretations.

Hunting for merch that riffs on the phrase 'my name is my name is' has been a weirdly fun little quest for me, and I’ve tracked down a few routes that actually work depending on how custom or official you want things to be. If you want immediate options, check out marketplaces like Etsy, Redbubble, TeePublic, and Teespring (Spring). Small shops on Etsy love text-based, meme-y designs and will often do custom text/placement. Redbubble and TeePublic are great for instant prints on shirts, stickers, and mugs; they also show customer reviews and mockups so you can eyeball how the phrase looks. For official-artist references — like if you’re trying to reference the song 'My Name Is' — look at the artist’s store or licensed merch retailers first to avoid copyright trouble. I also like using local print shops or services like Printful/Custom Ink when I want better fabric or a unique placement. Tip: search with quotes and variations ("my name is", "my name is my name", "my name is meme") and message sellers if you want tweaks. I once had a seller hand-center a line of text exactly where I wanted it, and it felt way more personal than buying mass-produced stuff.

There's a song that practically shouts its hook: it's 'My Name Is' by Eminem, the opening single that introduced Slim Shady to a lot of people. The chorus is basically a playful loop — “Hi! My name is (what?), my name is (who?), my name is Slim Shady” — so yes, the phrase 'my name is' gets repeated over and over as the earworm hook. I used to sing it with my friends in the car when we were teenagers and it always got everyone laughing because of how goofy and confrontational it is. The track comes off 'The Slim Shady LP' and has that sneering, satirical tone Eminem is known for; it samples a riff from Labi Siffre’s older work which gives it a catchy backdrop. Beyond the lyric itself, the song is a character intro — he’s literally telling you who this persona is, and then doubling down for emphasis. If you want the exact lyric, the single and its music video are iconic and easy to find, and hearing that chorus once will probably have you humming it all day.

I’ve tripped over that repeated phrase before while skimming poetry anthologies at a used-bookshop café, and honestly the safest immediate guess is that you might be remembering Percy Bysshe Shelley’s line from 'Ozymandias' — he writes, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,” which is a famous use of “My name is…” in English verse. If the line you recall literally repeats “my name is my name is,” though, that exact doubling doesn’t match Shelley's text word-for-word, so it could be a misremembered fragment or a modern piece playing with repetition. If you can, try to pull up the precise line in quotes via a search engine or the Poetry Foundation site; poets like e.e. cummings and Walt Whitman also love to repeat or emphasize identity with phrases like “I am” or “I celebrate myself,” and contemporary spoken-word poets sometimes stack “my name is” as a refrain. Let me know any other words you recall and I’ll chase it down with you — late-night searches over coffee are my favorite kind of treasure hunt.

Hearing the doubled phrase 'my name is my name is' feels like stepping into an echo chamber of identity—so many fans have riffed on what that repetition might mean, and I love how the theories range from psychological to downright supernatural. One camp treats it as a dissociative clue: the character is split, repeating themselves because two or more selves share the same body. That makes the line double as both confession and confrontation—one voice trying to convince the other (or the audience) of who’s in charge. Another takes a more meta tack: the repetition is a narrative glitch, an intentional stutter to signal unreliable memory or a time loop. Think of films like 'Memento' where repetitive structure mirrors broken recollection. Other takes get ritualistic—repetition as invocation. Saying a name more than once in fiction is often meant to bind, summon, or break a spell. There’s also the idea that it’s a translation/artifact thing: a subtitle or localization error that turned a single emphatic line into duplication, which then reads like something deeper. I enjoy that ambiguity; depending on the story you like, each theory opens different doors to interpret the scene, and sometimes the simplest is best: it might just be an actor choosing to double the line for emphasis, and fans built mythology around that choice.