You may or may not remember the famous line from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

But it is important to remember your own name.

I know what you’re thinking. Who doesn’t remember their name?

You’d be surprised how many artists create problems because of little things such as “the,” “and,” punctuation, capitalization or spelling.

Is it Rolling Stones or The Rolling Stones? Huey Lewis and the News or Huey Lewis & the News? Blink 182 or blink-182? REM or R.E.M.? The Beetles or The Beatles?

One small difference can turn into a much bigger problem when that name starts traveling through the music-distribution system.

Why does your artist name matter?

Your artist name is part of your brand, but it is also metadata, the information attached to a release that tells digital services who made it, what it is called and how it should appear.

Spotify says it displays artist names exactly as labels and distributors deliver them. Apple Music likewise identifies accurate artist names and formatting as critical release metadata.

In other words, decide what your name is before you start distributing music.

1. If you don’t get it right, no one else will

If you’ve ever known someone who goes by a different name than their legal name, you know how confusing it can become when people use both interchangeably.

The same thing happens with an artist or band name.

Don’t introduce yourself as Goodwin Brothers one day and The Goodwin Brothers the next.

Listeners should not have to decide which version is correct. Neither should your label, distributor, publicist, venue or streaming service.

Pick the name and use it everywhere.

2. Consistency is part of your brand

No matter what name you land on, keep it consistent.

That includes:

• spelling
• capitalization
• punctuation
• spaces
• abbreviations
• words such as “The”
• using “and” versus “&”

Those details can be intentional parts of an artist’s identity.

Take singer, songwriter and producer Tonéx, for example. His debut album was titled Pronounced Toe-Nay. Sometimes setting the record straight is worth doing from the beginning.

The more consistently you and everyone around you use the correct name, the easier it becomes to build recognition around it.

3. Check the name before you commit to it

If you are starting a new artist project, do some homework before releasing anything.

Search the major streaming services. Search social platforms. Search the web.

If five active artists already use the exact same name, that does not necessarily make the name unusable. However, it does increase the chance of confusion for listeners and music platforms.

A more distinctive name can make the artist easier to identify and find.

It can also save you from discovering after release day that your debut single landed next to somebody else’s 2008 death-metal album.

4. Metadata consistency helps keep your catalog together

This is where the issue becomes more than branding.

Digital services use metadata and platform-specific artist identifiers to determine which artist profile should receive a release.

When the information is wrong, catalogs can get split across several profiles or music can appear on another artist’s page.

Spotify specifically tells distributors to keep artist-name spelling, formatting, punctuation, abbreviations and acronyms consistent from one release to the next.

Apple Music similarly warns that albums from artists with the same name can end up on the same artist page.

So consistency matters.

However, the name alone is not enough to identify an artist reliably.

5. Use the existing artist profile whenever possible

When an artist already has music on a service, the best delivery is not simply:

“Send this to Erin’s artist name.”

It is:

“Send this to this specific Erin.”

Major streaming services maintain unique identifiers for artist profiles. For example, Spotify uses a Spotify artist ID, while Apple Music uses an Artist Apple ID.

Those identifiers help a distributor distinguish between two unrelated artists who happen to share a name.

At Syntax, connecting a new release to the correct existing artist profile is an important part of preparing delivery.

If you are already releasing music, make sure your team knows which profiles are actually yours.

6. Claim your artist profiles

Another good way to catch problems is to claim the artist accounts the services make available.

For example, Spotify for Artists lets you see upcoming music before it goes live and report releases connected to the wrong artist.

Likewise, Apple Music for Artists gives artists and managers access to their official Apple Music pages.

Those accounts do more than provide analytics. They give you a better view of how the services understand your artist identity and catalog.

Do not wait until something goes wrong to claim them.

7. Fix profile mixups instead of creating another variation

If your catalog is already split, changing the spelling again is usually not the answer.

Contact your label or distributor and identify:

• the correct artist name
• the correct artist profile
• the releases that belong there
• the releases that do not

Spotify also lets artists report catalog mixups through Spotify for Artists. Apple Music has a process for separating releases that landed on the wrong artist page.

The goal is to repair the existing artist identity, not create yet another version of it.

8. An artist-name change is a real metadata change

Sometimes an artist intentionally changes their name.

That is different from correcting a typo.

For example, Spotify does not let artists simply type a new name into Spotify for Artists. The name comes from the metadata supplied by the label or distributor, so an official name change has to move through that process.

If you are considering a change, talk to your distributor before announcing it or changing everything publicly.

Your existing catalog may also need updates, and different services can process those changes differently.

9. Check everything before distribution

Artist names are only one part of release metadata.

Before delivery, check the artist name everywhere it appears along with the song titles, release title, contributors, artwork and identifiers.

Our music distribution checklist covers the larger review worth doing before release.

A few minutes of checking is considerably easier than cleaning up a catalog after it has reached dozens of services.

Your name is less important than using it correctly

You can spend months coming up with the perfect artist name.

After you choose it, the boring part becomes important.

Spell it the same way. Capitalize it the same way. Use the same punctuation. Make sure your team does too. Then connect new releases to the existing artist profiles whenever possible.

Good consistency may never earn you a compliment.

Inconsistency gets noticed immediately.

So whether you are “The,” “&,” “and,” lowercase, uppercase or something nobody knows how to pronounce, pick one.

Then remember your own name.