Songlinks › Songwriters with the same name
Songwriters with the same name: tell them apart with one song
Eleven people are registered as Chris Martin. One of them wrote Yellow. Give Songlinks a name and one song, and it shows you which — in seconds, even for songs that were never recorded.
Free, nothing to sign up for. Try chris martin + yellow, mike smith + glad all over or david foster + the prayer.
The cost of guessing
A statement line, a split sheet or a cue sheet says “David Lee”. A hundred songwriter records carry that name. Pick the wrong one and the correction, the claim or the payment goes to a stranger — and nothing in the registration data warns you, because a registration is a name, not a person.
- About six in ten songwriter records carry no IPI name number, so there is often no number to tell two of them apart.
- A number does not settle it either: in a random sample, 8% of records that carry one shared their exact registered name with a record under a different number.
One song settles it
- Namesakes do not share catalogues. Two people can share a name. They rarely share a song. Name one, and the right writer rises to the top of the list.
- You already have it. Nobody knows a writer’s IPI number by heart. Every publisher, administrator and writer knows the songs.
- It sees the songs other searches miss. About six in ten registered works have no recording on file — library music, cues, demos, songs registered before release. Lookups built on recordings cannot see them. Songlinks checks every registered work.
What you get
CHRISTOPHER MARTIN has a song registered as “YELLOW”. The other 10 people in this answer do not.
- The right writer, first, marked with the song they have registered, and every one of their records grouped with the evidence for each join.
- The others, still shown, so you can see exactly who the song ruled out.
- A straight answer when nobody has it — which is worth knowing too: the song may be registered under a different title, or not under this writer at all.
For publishers and administrators: the whole roster, with nothing left out
Checking one name is free. Checking a catalogue is what we do for a living. Send your writer list with a song for each where you know one, and we run it for you across the full registration data: every registration grouped per writer, the evidence for each, a permanent person ID, and the songs that do not come back registered to the writer you expected.
- No limit on common names. The free lookup compares the closest records to a name; a catalogue run considers every record under it.
- A dozen names is enough to start. See the output before anyone talks about a whole catalogue.
Good to know
- A title lots of songs share can match more than one person. Add a different song and it narrows again.
- A stage name finds its writer only when the writer registered under it: search the legal name, and add the song.
- The free lookup is in beta and shows the closest records to a very common name, saying so when the answer is incomplete. It is evidence about registrations, not a check of anyone’s identity, and not a basis for rights or royalty decisions on its own.
Figures measured 2026‑09‑11 to 2026‑09‑23 on the registration data Songlinks reads. Why one writer appears several times in the first place: one songwriter, many registrations. Also: IPI name number lookup · questions people send us.