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Hi emillielane

It is not quite clear to me the nature of your exact issue.

I have attached an ATN file that takes the original layer (cannot be a background layer), sets the Fill to 0 and then duplicates the Layer 3 times to give you 4 layers total with the names up the upper three named as copies of the first layer name.

However, I infer from you posts that what you want is your eleventy-billion steps of a succeeding Action to refer to these Layers with a specific name.  The names can be set up once the way you want to which you other Action can refer, yet the next time you do this in the same Layer Stack, it will look again for those unique Layer labels (and not starting on a new Layer).  I could totally misunderstand yet I understand the issue of having an Action find the right Layers from which to work.

There is another approach in using Actions when referring to Layers.  Instead of referring to them by name, the can be referred to by relative position e.g. X layers below or X layers above.   This is achieved by using combinations of various keyboard shortcuts in this link:  https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/using/keys-layers-panel.html

You can select one Layer up or down or select the bottom of the stack or top of the stack.  You can also move Layers incrementally as well.

These relative operations do not depend on Layer names and gets rid of a bunch of issues.  You have to re-record you Action using these relative references yet could help solve you problem.

Then again, I may  not understand your issue.

Hope this helps

John