Why not just access the selected object's name when you need it? Blender panels are updated when blender re-draws. This only happens with user interaction so blender will check the selected object at a rate that is appropriate and you never have to worry! That's what the whole "context" thing is for. Unless there is some other reason you need to monitor selection I think you might be over complicating things.

class MyPanel(bpy.types.Panel): def draw(self, context): layout = self.layout row = layout.row() if len(context.selected_objects): txt = context.selected_objects[0].name  else:  txt = 'None'    row.label(text = txt) 

Why not just access the selected object's name when you need it? Blender panels are updated when blender re-draws. This only happens with user interaction so blender will check the selected object at a rate that is appropriate and you never have to worry! That's what the whole "context" thing is for. Unless there is some other reason you need to monitor selection I think you might be over complicating things.

class MyPanel(bpy.types.Panel): def draw(self, context): layout = self.layout row = layout.row() if len(context.selected_objects): ob = context.selected_objects[0] row.prop(ob, "name")