Brand Power! Celebrities Who Have Trademarked Their Name or Iconic Catchphrases — Including Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again'

50 Cent guaranteed his cultural influence by securing a trademark on his stage name.

The "In da Club" rapper, born Curtis James Jackson III, legally registered his pseudonym with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in July 2002 before the release of his debut album. Years later, he sued Taco Bell for $4 million after the brand launched the ad campaign for its "Why Pay More?" menu.

"We made a good faith, charitable offer to 50 Cent to change his name for one day by rapping his order at a Taco Bell, and we would have been very pleased to make the $10,000 donation to the charity of his choice," a spokesperson for Taco Bell said at the time.

The two parties settled the lawsuit in 2009.

According to USPTO's website, 50 Cent resubmitted a trademark assignment cover sheet as part of a new application, which is live and under examination as of press time.

In November 2012, Donald Trump filed a trademark for his popular political slogan, Make America Great Again, under the registration number 4773272. The trademark application was approved in July 2015, over a year before he won the 2016 presidential election.

Dwayne "The Rock'" Johnson's name and influence were so powerful that he secured a variety of IP and trademark rights when he became a member of the board of directors of WWE owner TKO Group Holdings in February 2024.

In addition to officially claiming exclusive rights to his WWE stage name, "The Rock," the wrestler-turned-actor received trademarks for his other nicknames and taglines like "The Brahma Bull," "The People's Champion," "Rock Bottom," "People's Elbow," "The Samoan Sensation," "If you smell what The Rock is cooking," "Jabroni" and "Know your role and shut your mouth," among others.

From his name to his "Flavortown" catchphrase, Guy Fieri locked down everything by trademarking them all.

During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in February 2025, the famous restaurateur explained the meaning of his tagline.

"It just turned into something and now there's 'Flavortown' foods, sauces and you name it," he said. "'Flavortown' was this mythical place [I'd go] every time I'd try something really great. The first time, I think, it started is I had this gigantic pizza … I held [the pizza pan] and said, 'Look at this thing! It's like the steering wheel on the bus going to Flavortown.' That's all I said!"

Fieri added, "I said it a couple of other times about 'a manhole cover in Flavortown,' and then people started walking up in airports, going, 'Hey! Flavortown.' Then, someone yelled at me [and said], 'It's the Mayor of Flavortown'. I looked at my film crew going, 'What's that about?' [The crew explained], 'You keep repeating this Flavortown thing.' … I am the appointed mayor. I became the mayor but somebody appointed my son as 'The Prince of Flavortown.'"

According to the Wall Street Journal, Matthew McConaughey protected his name, voice and famous catchphrase "All right, all right, all right" under trademark law to prevent unauthorized use by artificial intelligence.

The USPTO approved eight separate applications for the Dazed and Confused actor in recent weeks, per the outlet.

"My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it's because I approved and signed off on it," McConaughey said in a statement. "We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world."

In September 2018, just months after filing a trademark application in January 2018, Meryl Streep trademarked her name for "entertainment services, namely, live, televised, and movie appearances by a professional actress and entertainer."

The registered exclusive rights also include "personal appearances, speaking engagements; autograph signings" and "providing a website featuring content in the field of motion pictures."

American ring announcer Michael Buffer officially claimed trademark rights over his signature "Let's get ready to rumble!" catchphrase in 1995. He began using the five-word phrase in the 1980s.

After popularizing her line "That's hot" on The Simple Life, Paris Hilton trademarked the catchphrase in 2004, covering "multimedia entertainment services in the nature of recording, production, and post production services in the fields of music, video, film."

"Suddenly there seemed to be a lot of things in my world that deserved this little accolade, and I recorded them faithfully in my diary," she wrote about the tagline in her book Paris: The Memoir. "Mom got me markers with glitter in them. That's hot. We learned how to diagram sentences. That's hot. Nicole [Richie] is sleeping over the whole weekend. That's hot."

The heiress added, "Pretty soon all the kids in my class were saying, 'That's hot.' Like I made 'fetch' happen! … I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it; I only knew I didn't want anyone else to get there first."

According to reports, Taylor Swift has hundreds of trademarks registered worldwide — from her stage name to album names and song lyrics. She also completed a trademark filing for her cats' names: Meredith, Olivia and Benjamin Swift.