How Do You Play Name Game?

Added: 09/18/2007

The Name Game is based on a very popular song that takes a person's first name and puts it through various verbal acrobatics until it comes out in a form that flows and rhymes and can be sung out loud. Even though the Name Game is a children’s song and was designed to be a children's game it is also very popular with adults. It is especially popular as a drinking game among legal age adults.

The Name Game is a song written by Shirley Ellis and Lincoln Chase and released in 1964. It was produced by Charles Calello and released as The Name Game. Lots of radio stations liked to play Name Game record as it went all the way up to number 3 on the Billboard top 100 charts of popular records. The record was so popular that it was re-released in 1966 and 1973. To this day you can still occasionally hear them play Name Game song on the radio and when it comes on there is usually at least one person in the group you are in that knows how to play Name Game and sings along with it. That person can usually also play Name Game with anyone’s first name. Even though the novelty wears off quickly it is still interesting to hear it done a few times with a few different names. Shirley Ellis did not make a living just off the Name Game song as she was not a novelty artist but a serious singer with a successful career for years prior to the radio play the Name Game got when it was released. Ellis could be seen it mid to late 1960’s performing the Name Game on the popular television shows of the day.

The Name Game has been re-recorded numerous times by various artists as was even recorded in 2002 by comedian Soupy Sales. There was even a parody of the Name Game recorded in 1982 by Stacy Lattisaw called The Attack Of The Name Game but by the time this song was released the momentum behind the original song was fading and the parody only reached number 79 on the Hot 100 pop song charts. The Name Game has even reached the big screen as Tom Hanks can be heard to play the Name Game in his movie The Money Pit and it can also be heard in the 1999 movie A Walk On The Moon. The Name Game song even reached the legendary actor Robert De Niro as it was used in his movie Flawless to help his character in the movie to regain his speech.

To play the Name Game all you need is someone’s first name and then to know the structure of the game itself. It is based on a child’s game and what you do is take someone’s first name and put it into the following structure: name, name, bo-b(name) Banana-fana-fo-f(name) Fee-fi-mo-m(name) name! It certainly does sound like a children’s game but this caught on with everyone almost from the day it was released. Here is how it looks with the name Jerry being used: Jerry, Jerry, bo-berry Banana-fana-fo-ferry Fee-fi-mo-merry Jerry! The point of the game is that once you get structure of the game down and you become proficient in inserting any name that you are given the whole thing can flow very well and be quite fun to both say and listen to. Even though it is a children’s game you have to be careful when you play the Name Game around children because names like Chuck and Mitch can lead to obscenities and that may not be a good thing when you are playing a children’s game with children. On the flip side it can be easily seen how a game like this can be taken to whole new levels by adults at a party regardless of whether or not those adults are impaired by alcohol and regardless of whether or not those adults can actually sing.

As a pop hit the Name Game has pretty much run its course as far as receiving a lot of radio airplay but it was just catchy enough that it is a timeless children’s song that it could be around for a long time. It is fun to play and it can be pretty addicting as well.

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