Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern won the 1941 Best Song Oscar for The Last Time I Saw Paris from Lady Be Good. Hammerstein won a second Best Song Oscar with Richard Rodgers in 1945 for It Might As Well Be Spring from State Fair. Hammerstein was the first (and, to date, only) person to be named Oscar to win an Oscar.

The origins of the nickname "Oscar" for the Academy Award statuette are murky. The most famous story is that Academy librarian Margaret Herrick saw it and exclaimed "Oh my God, it looks just like my Uncle Oscar!" although the name has also been credited to Bette Davis and Louis B. Mayer's executive secretary Eleanor Lilleberg.

Calling the statuette "Oscar" was commonly meant as an insult heavily flavored with sour grapes ("Did you hear that so-and-so won an Oscar?") until Walt Disney won the animated short subject award for The Three Little Pigs in 1933 and warmly used the name in his acceptance speech. Calling the award "Oscar" took on a new meaning after that and the Academy officially adopted it in 1939.