What's in a Name?
A rose by any other name would still be a rose, but if you called it Elvis, you could certainly charge a lot more for it. Celebrity names and images have a lot of selling power because they provide instant recognizability; they are their own brands. Business Week determined the worth of the names of 13 celebrities. Two on the list have sold the rights to their names almost entirely, three are deceased, but still making a large amount of money annually, and the rest of the people are still building up their price tags.
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Muhammad Ali - $63 million, sold in April of this year
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George Foreman - $137.5 million, sold in 1999
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Albert Einstein - $1 million annually
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Marilyn Monroe - $1.25 million annually
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Paris Hilton $15 million annually
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Tiger Woods - $21 million annually
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P Diddy - $22 million annually
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Michael Jordon - $25 million annually
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Jennifer Lopez - $35 million annually
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Elvis Presley - $40 million annually
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Elizabeth Taylor - $50 million annually
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Donald Trump - $280 million annually
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