"The Name Game" is a song co-written and performed by Shirley Ellis[1] as a rhyming game that creates variations on a person's name.[2] She explains through speaking and singing how to play the game. The first verse is done using Ellis's first name; the other names used in the original version of the song are Lincoln, Arnold, Tony, Billy, Marsha, and Nick.

"Name Game"
Single by Laura Branigan
from the album Touch
Released	1988
Genre	Synth-pop pop rock
Length	4:10
Label	Atlantic
Songwriter(s)	Shirley Ellis Lincoln Chase
Producer(s)	David Kesherbaun
Laura Branigan singles chronology
"Cry Wolf" (1988) "Name Game" (1988) "Moonlight in Water" (1990)

History

Written by American singer Shirley Ellis (who based the song on a game she played as a child[2]) and Lincoln Chase, Ellis's recording, produced by Charles Calello, was released in late 1964 as "The Name Game". The record scored third on the Billboard Hot 100, and fourth on the magazine's R&B charts during 1965. The record was re-released in 1966 and again in 1973. A R&B singer for 10 years before that success, Ellis was also successful with "The Clapping Song (Clap Pat Clap Slap)" (#8 pop and #16 R&B), and "The Nitty Gritty" (#8 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the Cash Box R&B chart). Ellis performed on then-major television programs, including Hullabaloo, American Bandstand and The Merv Griffin Show. It later became a popular children's singalong.[2]

"The Name Game" has been recorded by dozens of recording artists in the years since, notably Laura Branigan, whose version produced by Jeff Lorber was included on her 1987 album Touch, released as the fifth single. It features a classroom of third-grade schoolchildren singing along to the game. Judy Moody, Hannah Banana and many other phrases have been referenced from this song.

Often sung by relative unknowns for collections of songs for children, other cover versions have been recorded by artists as diverse as:

• 1965: Dean Ford and the Gaylords
• 1965: Soupy Sales
• 1965: Olivia Molina ("Juego De Palabras")
• 1975: Anne Renée ("Un jeu d'fou")
• 1980: Joanie Bartels covered the song with different names, releasing it as a single from the 1980 album, Sillytime Magic, and the 1994 video The Extra-Special Substitute Teacher.
• 1980: Divine
• 1982: Stacy Lattisaw's contemporary R&B/hip hop recording "Attack of the Name Game", with a completely different melody and lyrics, reached #70 on the Hot 100.
• 1990: Cree Summer (as Elmyra Duff) performed a cover for "TV Toons", an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, using the Toons' names (except Plucky Duck's, as mentioned by that episode's end credits). A version of this with a different melody is collected on the 1992 album Tiny Toons Sing!.
• 1991: Rose Nylund (Betty White) sings The Name Game when Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) stop the car off camera and tell Rose to get out from The Golden Girls (season 7, episode 11: "Room 7").
• 1994: Xuxa ("Jogo da Rima")
• 1997: Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir covered the song with alternate names from the album Shakin' a Tailfeather.
• 1999: Lattislaw's version was sampled by Mariah Carey on her single "Heartbreaker", from her album Rainbow.
• 2013: Sister Jude (Jessica Lange) performs a rendition in the second season of American Horror Story, in the episodetitled after the song.
• 2016: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) sings a segment on The Big Bang Theory (season 9, episode 21: "The Viewing Party Combustion").

On May 3, 2017, Howard Stern stated that he sings this song to young children, and calls it "his secret weapon" saying "it not only comforts them, it also distracts them from [his] unsightly features".[3]

This song was excerpted in Dickie Goodman's novelty break-in record single called "Shonanza" (1965), a spoof on the popular television Western Bonanza, where the "Tony" verse is sped up, and then slowed, losing its energy.

The former oldies AM radio station AM 1110, did a version of that song in the late 1980s, with the names of the living disc jockeys, who presided in that station at that time.

Rules

Using the name Katie as an example, the song follows this pattern:

Katie, Katie, bo-batie,

Bonana-fanna fo-fatie

Fee fi mo-matie

Katie!

A verse can be created for any name with stress on the first syllable, with X as the name and Y as the name without the first consonant sound (if it begins with a consonant), as follows:

(X), (X), bo-b (Y)

Bonana-fanna fo-f (Y)

Fee fi mo-m (Y)

(X)!

If the name starts with a b, f, or m, that sound simply is not repeated. For example: Billy becomes "Billy Billy bo-illy"; Fred becomes "bonana fanna fo-red"; Marsha becomes "fee fi mo-arsha"[2]

The song as originally performed gives no indication of what to do with names where the stress falls on a syllable after the first, like Anita or Antoinette; however, the cover version on the workout video Sweatin' to the Oldies 3 (vocals by Donna Miller) suggests that the first syllable should be dropped after the name is first said; the name Madonna is sung as "Madonna-donna-bo-bonna," etc.

See also

• 1964 in music
• Nursery rhyme
• Swinging the Alphabet

References