Monday, November 17, 2014

The Politics of Male First Names




Verdant Labs has a fascinating blog post on political trends in first names.

One big finding: "Of male names that are at least fairly common, the most Democratic are Jonah and Malik, and the most Republican are Delbert and Duane."

I think I know what is going on here.

The Democratic end is tipped by distinctively black or Jewish names. In addition to Jonah and Malik, we find Ethan, Willie, Saul, Emmanuel, Isaiah, Tyrone, Omar, Irving, and Israel.

On the Republican side, we find country white names. In addition to Delbert and Duane, there are Rex, Dallas, Brent, Troy, Lyle, Darrell, Billy, Ricky, and Randy.



2 comments:

dennistheeremite said...

I would also say unscientifically that (of the guys I know) the Delberts and Duanes are older than me (I'm 62) and the Randys and Brents are a bit younger, (but not very young)

Gruntled said...

They don't give the ages of these names, so you are likely right.

The other fact I note is that Democratic names are much more varied that Republican ones.