There was a time when a stage name did one job – it separated the performer from the person. David Bowie wasn’t David Jones. Elton John wasn’t Reginald Dwight. Lady Gaga wasn’t Stefani Germanotta. The name was part of the performance and a costume that never came off. Today it’s something much bigger. A stage name can anchor a beauty empire, a fragrance line or a billion-dollar merchandising business. A celebrity’s face used to sell someone else’s product but now it sells their own. That’s exactly the ground Taylor Swift is fighting over. A trademark registered back in 2015 has dragged one of the world’s biggest pop stars into a federal courtroom.
Maren Flagg, a Las Vegas performer who works as Maren Wade, owns the registered mark “Confessions of a Showgirl”. In March 2026 she sued Taylor Swift, arguing that “The Life of a Showgirl” treads on her decade-old rights. Swift’s lawyers call the case a publicity stunt. However, Flagg’s amended complaint argues the opposite risk, that Swift’s sheer scale could make the original look like the imitation. Whatever happens next, one important detail has emerged. The USPTO refused parts of Swift’s application for “The Life of a Showgirl”, citing a likelihood of confusion with Flagg’s existing “Confessions of a Showgirl” registration.
But in trademark law, the register does not care who sells more records. Earlier rights can matter more than fame. Pop culture is full of these collisions over aliases, slogans and album-era branding. And they reveal something most fans never consider: the names we chant are also assets somebody owns.
Can you trademark a stage name?
Yes. The biggest shift over the past two decades is that celebrities no longer just endorse brands but rather they build them. A stage name starts on a poster. Then it ends up stitched into a jacket label or printed on a perfume bottle. Trademark law is what allows all of those businesses to sit under one recognisable identity, and it is the terrain firms like Trama build a practice on.
Matthew McConaughey has assembled eight US registrations covering his voice, image and catchphrases, secured, as NPR reported, before any AI fake of him existed. Pitbull’s signature falsetto yell has been a registered sound mark since 2019. Funny to think that a register once reserved for soap powders and soft drinks now holds voices, catchphrases and a yell.
Even Swift is playing offence as well as defence: in April 2026 her rights company filed three US applications covering two spoken phrases and her image, widely read as armour against AI voice cloning. Those applications remain pending; she has filed for her voice but not yet secured it.
The “Showgirl” case shows the other side of the coin. A registered stage name gives a working performer protection and leverage. It was enough, in Wade’s case, to put a global superstar on the defensive. Fame is not ownership; registration is.
Can you trademark an album title?
Yes, but the protection is shakier than it looks, and that is because two of the biggest recent decisions cut in opposite directions. In December 2025, a California judge refused to block Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem” album and merchandise, holding that an album title is an expressive work with First Amendment protection even though a surf brand held a registered MAYHEM mark.
Swift’s lawyers now cite that ruling in their own defence. Yet a registration can also turn out to be weaker than it looks. In February 2026 the UK Supreme Court struck down Oatly’s registered slogan “POST MILK GENERATION” for oat drinks, because “milk” is a protected dairy term the clearance work had missed.
A granted mark, it turns out, can still fall years later. Album-era branding sits between those poles. As pop culture and fashion continue to merge, album titles and tour slogans become merchandise lines, and merchandise is exactly where trademark law bites hardest. These stories show why the biggest names in entertainment treat trademark registration as part of building a modern brand. Many of the marks at the heart of these stories feature in the Trademark Hall of Fame – curated by TramaTm – full-service, lawyer-led IP law firm – and comprises a collection of famous names, logos and sounds that became cultural icons because someone recognised their commercial value long before the rest of the world did.
Can celebrities stop other people using their name or image?
Most people assume celebrities automatically own their face. In Britain, they don’t. The UK has no free-standing image right and it’s a gap that made Rihanna v Topshop the defining case. When the retailer sold an unauthorised t-shirt bearing her photograph, Rihanna won in the Court of Appeal not because her face was legally hers but because, given her existing merchandising business, shoppers would wrongly believe she had endorsed the shirt. Passing off filled the space where image rights don’t exist.
Most artists are better off registering the trademark, then monitoring the register so a clashing application is caught while there is still time to oppose it. That is how these fights usually get settled: at the trademark office, through an opposition and not in a courtroom. Kylie Minogue’s company blocked Kylie Jenner’s US application to register “KYLIE” in 2017, protecting a name she had traded under since the 1980s. And Minogue’s team could only block “KYLIE” because someone was watching when the application appeared. Minogue later described the whole affair as “just business”, which is precisely the point. For artists building the sort of celebrity brand empires that now stretch across beauty, fashion and fragrance, the name is the business.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns a stage name, the artist or the label?
Whoever registers it, which is why the question matters before the first big contract. An unregistered alias rests on shaky ground; a registered one, like Wade’s 2015 mark, is enforceable property that even a superstar’s lawyers must reckon with.
How do I stop someone using my brand name?
TramaTM, a full-service, lawyer-led IP law firm, recommends combining trademark registration with an ongoing trademark monitoring service. Registration creates the legal rights; monitoring helps ensure those rights can be enforced before problems escalate. It allows brand owners to identify conflicting applications early, pursue marketplace takedowns and, where necessary, take legal action. In the UK, established businesses may also rely on passing off where a reputation exists. Without registration, however, every enforcement option becomes slower, more uncertain and typically more expensive.
Is a registered trademark ever struck down?
Yes. Oatly found this out the hard way when its Supreme Court defeat came years after the mark was granted. A rival trademark isn’t the only thing that can sink an application – regulatory restrictions can, too. Trademark work needs a lawyer, not just a search tool.
