NamePolitics

What does your name say about your politics?

Every first name here sits somewhere on the political spectrum, placed using public records from fourteen million campaign contributors and thirty-one million registered voters.

4,847 names scored. About nine in ten Americans will find theirs.

What you go by matters more than what you were named

The clearest finding in this data is not which name you were given, but which form of it you use. Across every pair we can test, the nickname sits to the right of the formal name. Same name, same families, same era. Different politics.

See all 113 pairs

Furthest left, among donors

  1. Kate
    liberalconservative
  2. Erica
    liberalconservative
  3. Alexandra
    liberalconservative
  4. Hilary
    liberalconservative
  5. Alexis
    liberalconservative
  6. Vanessa
    liberalconservative
  7. Jessica
    liberalconservative
  8. Yvette
    liberalconservative
  9. Megan
    liberalconservative
  10. Hannah
    liberalconservative
  11. Adrienne
    liberalconservative
  12. Alison
    liberalconservative

Furthest right, among donors

  1. Billy
    liberalconservative
  2. Rex
    liberalconservative
  3. Tommy
    liberalconservative
  4. Virgil
    liberalconservative
  5. Jimmy
    liberalconservative
  6. Bud
    liberalconservative
  7. Lyle
    liberalconservative
  8. Bobby
    liberalconservative
  9. Elmer
    liberalconservative
  10. Willard
    liberalconservative
  11. Wilbur
    liberalconservative
  12. Clyde
    liberalconservative

The same question, asked of registered voters

Donors are a particular crowd. Here is the ranking from actual party registration instead, pooled across North Carolina and Florida, counting only names that lean the same way in both states. The Democratic share is shown against a baseline of 50%.

Most Democratic

  1. Ebony
    97% D
    NC 97% · FL 96% · 3,226 voters
  2. Latoya
    96% D
    NC 96% · FL 97% · 4,901 voters
  3. Latasha
    94% D
    NC 94% · FL 95% · 2,431 voters
  4. Jermaine
    93% D
    NC 93% · FL 93% · 2,371 voters
  5. Cedric
    90% D
    NC 91% · FL 90% · 2,254 voters
  6. Keisha
    89% D
    NC 87% · FL 91% · 2,014 voters
  7. Tyrone
    89% D
    NC 91% · FL 87% · 3,641 voters
  8. Willie
    88% D
    NC 86% · FL 90% · 16,167 voters
  9. Darius
    88% D
    NC 88% · FL 88% · 2,507 voters
  10. Jasmine
    87% D
    NC 89% · FL 86% · 12,147 voters
  11. Maya
    85% D
    NC 90% · FL 82% · 2,444 voters
  12. Dominique
    85% D
    NC 90% · FL 83% · 4,544 voters

Most Republican

  1. Tanner
    19% D
    NC 17% · FL 22% · 2,467 voters
  2. Landon
    20% D
    NC 16% · FL 30% · 2,493 voters
  3. Hunter
    21% D
    NC 17% · FL 24% · 7,805 voters
  4. Dalton
    21% D
    NC 18% · FL 24% · 3,187 voters
  5. Cole
    24% D
    NC 24% · FL 24% · 2,929 voters
  6. Dustin
    24% D
    NC 18% · FL 28% · 7,623 voters
  7. Cody
    24% D
    NC 18% · FL 28% · 9,299 voters
  8. Colby
    25% D
    NC 20% · FL 30% · 2,171 voters
  9. Mason
    26% D
    NC 23% · FL 28% · 3,865 voters
  10. Chad
    26% D
    NC 22% · FL 29% · 9,882 voters
  11. Austin
    26% D
    NC 21% · FL 29% · 15,756 voters
  12. Chase
    27% D
    NC 26% · FL 28% · 4,582 voters

This list looks nothing like the donor list, and the reason is worth saying plainly. Among registered voters the strongest signal in a name is race: the most Democratic names here are names common among Black Americans, and the most Republican are young, white, rural-sounding ones. Among donors that signal is faint, because Black Americans are heavily under-represented in the donor pool, and what shows through instead is age and sex. Neither list is wrong. They describe different people.

One thing to know before you read too much into it

These numbers describe people who donate money to campaigns, who are older and wealthier than the country. Where we can check a name against actual voter registration, donors and voters sometimes point in opposite directions. Every name page shows both, side by side, rather than averaging them into one confident-looking number.

How this was built, and what it cannot tell you