Right of Publicity

Lew Alcindor in an Oldsmobile Ad: Abdul-Jabbar and the Persistence of a Former Name

The Ninth Circuit held that a celebrity's discarded birth name remains part of his identity, reviving claims over an Oldsmobile commercial.

September 22, 2025
A vintage sedan parked on an empty street
Abdul-Jabbar v. General Motors held that a former name can still identify the person who once bore it. Shutterstock
Educational content, not legal advice. This article explains general legal concepts. It does not create an attorney–client relationship. For your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney.

In Abdul-Jabbar v. General Motors Corp., No. 94-55597 (9th Cir.), decided in 1996, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit answered a question that sits at the edge of identity law: can a celebrity assert rights in a name he deliberately stopped using decades earlier? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis “Lew” Alcindor and played basketball under that name through a celebrated college career at UCLA, where he was voted the NCAA tournament’s most outstanding player three years running. He adopted the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971 and recorded it under an Illinois name-recordation statute. More than twenty years later, General Motors and its agency, the Leo Burnett Company, ran a television commercial for the Oldsmobile 88 during the NCAA tournament. The ad posed a trivia question — who had been voted the tournament’s most outstanding player three consecutive times — and displayed the answer, “Lew Alcindor,” before pivoting to the car’s accolades. Abdul-Jabbar had not consented and was not paid. The district court granted summary judgment to GM. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that his birth name remained part of his protectable identity and that a jury must decide whether the ad implied his endorsement.

At a glance

  • Case: Abdul-Jabbar v. General Motors Corp., No. 94-55597 (9th Cir.), decided 1996; opinion amended on the denial of rehearing.
  • Posture: Appeal from summary judgment for the defendants in the Central District of California on all claims.
  • Claims: section 43(a) of the Lanham Act (false endorsement); California Civil Code section 3344; and the California common-law right of publicity.
  • Defendants’ theory: Abdul-Jabbar had abandoned the name “Lew Alcindor” long ago, so using it could not be using his name or identity.
  • Holding on abandonment: Rejected. Trademark-style abandonment, which depends on ceasing commercial use of a mark, does not strip a person of rights in his own birth name; a name one is born with is not the kind of thing that lapses through non-use.
  • Holding on the merits: Reversed. Genuine issues of fact existed on whether the ad created a likelihood of confusion about endorsement (Lanham Act) and whether it appropriated his identity (publicity), requiring trial.

The abandonment defense and why it failed

GM’s central argument borrowed a concept from trademark law. A trademark can be abandoned: if an owner stops using a mark in commerce with no intent to resume, the mark falls into the public domain and others may use it. Abdul-Jabbar, GM contended, had done the equivalent with “Lew Alcindor” — he had publicly renounced it, built a new commercial persona under “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” and let the old name lie dormant for over two decades. On that theory, the birth name was free for the taking.

The Ninth Circuit rejected the analogy. Trademark abandonment is a doctrine about marks used to identify goods in commerce; it polices the relationship between a symbol and a product, and it tolerates the loss of rights through disuse because marks exist only as commercial tools. A person’s name is different in kind. “Lew Alcindor” was not a brand Abdul-Jabbar had licensed and let lapse; it was the name under which he was born and under which he achieved the very athletic feats the commercial invoked. One does not abandon one’s own past, and the public record of what “Lew Alcindor” accomplished did not become commercially ownerless simply because the man later changed his name. The court therefore held that GM could not invoke abandonment to defeat either the Lanham Act or the right-of-publicity claims, and that the birth name remained a protectable indicium of Abdul-Jabbar’s identity.

False endorsement and the question of confusion

The Lanham Act claim turned on likelihood of confusion — specifically, whether the commercial falsely suggested that Abdul-Jabbar endorsed the Oldsmobile 88. GM argued the ad merely recited a historical fact: a true statement about who won an award. The court acknowledged the factual accuracy but found it did not resolve the endorsement question. A truthful reference to a celebrity’s past achievements, deployed in a commercial that segues directly from the celebrity’s record to the product’s virtues, can still imply a connection between the celebrity and the product. Whether viewers would draw that inference — whether they would understand the ad as Abdul-Jabbar’s endorsement of the car — was a classic jury question, not a matter for summary judgment.

This is the same structural point that recurs throughout commercial-misappropriation law: literal accuracy is not a safe harbor. An advertiser can use a true fact about a famous person and still cross the line if the use trades on the person’s identity to sell goods or implies an endorsement that was never given. The court’s refusal to treat the trivia framing as dispositive kept the focus on effect — what the ad communicated to consumers — rather than on the formal truth of its words.

Identity beyond the current name

For the broader misappropriation doctrine, the lasting contribution of Abdul-Jabbar is its expansion of what counts as a person’s identity. The right of publicity protects the commercial value of who a person is, and the court recognized that a person’s identity is cumulative: it includes the names, accomplishments, and public history he accrued over a lifetime, not merely the label he currently uses. “Lew Alcindor” still identified Abdul-Jabbar because the public — at least the segment that followed basketball — understood the two names to denote the same man and associated the college records with him.

That holding aligns the case with the line of authority protecting non-current, non-obvious identifiers: nicknames, catchphrases, distinctive styles, and now former names. The unifying idea is recognition. If a signifier reliably calls a particular celebrity to mind, an advertiser who uses it commercially has appropriated identity, regardless of whether the signifier is the person’s legal name today. The decision thereby extends misappropriation protection across time, covering the personas a celebrity has shed as well as the one he presently inhabits.

Open questions

  • How current must an identifier be? The court protected a name unused for over twenty years, but offered no test for how long or how strongly the public must retain the association.
  • When does a true historical reference become an endorsement? The line between permissible factual reference and implied sponsorship was left to the jury, with no bright-line guidance for advertisers.
  • Does this favor only the famous? The recognition rationale presumes a public that links the old name to the person; its application to private individuals or faded fame is uncertain.
  • How does it interact with newsworthiness and the First Amendment? The opinion did not deeply resolve when truthful references to a celebrity’s record are protected expression rather than commercial appropriation.

Implications

  • A former name can still be your identity. Discarding a name does not surrender rights in it; a birth name that still identifies a person to the public remains protectable.
  • Trademark abandonment does not apply to personal names. Disuse may forfeit a commercial mark, but it does not forfeit rights in one’s own name and personal history.
  • Truthful does not mean lawful. Accurate references to a celebrity’s past achievements can still imply endorsement and support Lanham Act and publicity claims.
  • Endorsement is a fact question. Whether an ad communicates sponsorship usually turns on consumer perception, making summary judgment difficult for advertisers.
  • Identity is cumulative. Misappropriation protection can reach the personas, records, and names a celebrity has accumulated over time, not just the current one.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Oldsmobile commercial actually say? The ad posed a trivia question about who had been voted the most outstanding player of the NCAA tournament three years in a row, displayed the answer “Lew Alcindor” with the years on screen, and then touted the Oldsmobile 88’s place on a best-buy list three years running. It used Abdul-Jabbar’s birth name and college record without his consent or payment.

Why couldn’t GM rely on the fact that Abdul-Jabbar had changed his name? GM argued he had abandoned the name “Lew Alcindor,” borrowing the trademark concept that disuse forfeits rights. The Ninth Circuit held that doctrine inapplicable to a person’s birth name: a name one is born with and achieves fame under is not a commercial mark that lapses through non-use, so Abdul-Jabbar retained rights in it.

Did Abdul-Jabbar win the case outright? No. The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment and sent the case back for trial, holding that there were genuine factual disputes — particularly whether the ad implied his endorsement — that a jury had to resolve. The decision restored his claims rather than finally adjudicating them.

Authorities and sources