Add user name and content to user menu
I ended up slowly working my way towards the result, my main issue was trying to get the dpm to show me what content I can change - but that's just because I'm, still slightly unfamiliar with how the whole process runs

function MYTHEME_menu_tree__user_menu(&amp;$variables) {
 return '&lt;ul&gt;'. $variables['tree'] .'&lt;/ul&gt;';
}

function MYTHEME_menu_link__user_menu(array $variables) {
  $element = $variables['element'];
  $sub_menu = '';

  if ($element['#below']) {
    $sub_menu = drupal_render($element['#below']);
  }

  $element['#localized_options']['attributes'] = array('class' =&gt; 'my-btn');

  $output = l($element['#title'], $element['#href'], $element['#localized_options']);
  return '&lt;li&gt;' . $output . $sub_menu . "&lt;/li&gt;\n";
}

function MYTHEME_preprocess_block(&amp;$variables){
  global $user;
  $block =&amp; $variables['block'];

  if ($block-&gt;module == 'system' &amp;&amp; $block-&gt;delta == 'user-menu') {
    if (user_is_logged_in()) {
      $variables['content'] = check_plain($user-&gt;name) . $variables['content'];
    }
  }

}