In a multicultural country like the USA, a person’s first or last name can reveal a lot about them: their origin, their age, even what State or region they live in. But can he also betray his political orientation?
The association of names and surnames with the two major parties has been attempted by the American media in previous election contests, both in 2012 by the magazine “The Atlantic”, which investigated the names that appeared most in the donations of the candidates at the time, and in 2016 from the magazine “TIME”, which identified the most popular names in the States where each party gathered the largest percentages.
However, ahead of November’s crucial presidential election, The Washington Post took the project a step further: it collected and compared data from the lists of registered voters of the Democratic and Republican parties – data that is accessible to pollsters and research reasons – thus listing the names that in less than a month are most likely to vote for either her Kamala Harris either him Donald Trump.
The most “blue” names
So, according to the newspaper’s research, the most “blue” names, that is, those that appear more in the electoral rolls of the Democrats (at least 5,000 times) and not at all of the Republicans, are the following: Imani, Latoya, Germaine and Malik. The corresponding surnames are Williams, Jalo and Diallo. So it becomes obvious that these are African-American voters, either descendants of slaves or immigrants from Africa.
Against the background of the looming election contest, the particular statistic is especially important as analysts try to monitor the so-called “black vote”, which has traditionally been the biggest supporter of the Democrats, but some polls show that it has started to drift away from the party.
The Republican names
On the opposite side, the names Brayden, Colton, Darla and Dixie appear the most loyal to the Republican Party, as do the surnames Stoltzfus and Byler.
Specific adjectives that betray German ancestry are very common in the Amish community, who are widely known to be conservative in almost everything. It is therefore to be expected that they are conservative in politics as well, constituting according to the “New York Times” the “most loyal Republican bloc in the country”.
The Amish typically have large families, with an average of between six and nine children, and there is an increase in people wanting to join this community, resulting in population growth. In fact, almost three-quarters of the Amish live in Pennsylvania – a happy fact for the Republican Party, since it is one of the most crucial swing states expected to play a pivotal role in the upcoming elections.
The names that have changed political coloring
At the same time, the research showed that some names have changed political coloration over time – that’s why not only the name plays a role, but also age. For example, a woman named Reagan if she is over 45 is more likely to vote Democratic while if she is younger – and therefore born after his victory Ronald Reagan in 1980 – she’s probably a Republican.
More often than not, however, the trend runs in the opposite direction: between two namesakes, an older person is more likely to be registered as a Republican than a younger one, since young voters tend to lean left.
Surname changes, on the other hand, tell a different story as they demonstrate situations in which the political orientation of an entire extended family changed, even if its surname did not. For example, all the surnames that shift more and more to the right with age – Hoang, Do, Vo, Nguyen and others – have an obvious similarity: they betray Vietnamese ancestry in that they are basically either first-generation Vietnamese immigrants, who fled the leftist government of Vietnam during the Cold War, either for their children. This group of voters tends to show a preference for anti-communists in the Republican Party.
However, Vietnamese children who were born and raised primarily in coastal areas of the US have in recent years appeared to lean more toward Democrats than their parents did toward Republicans. A corresponding pattern is observed, although to a lesser extent, in the surnames Padron and Alonso which are found mainly in the Cuban-American communities.
The most fitting name
Of course, it should be noted that the fact that someone is registered in one of the two major parties in the USA does not necessarily mean that he will go to vote, nor that if he does go, he will vote for that particular party. The survey is just a general look at the political preferences of the multicultural American society. However, based on voter registration data, Harris (65.5% of Harrises are Democrats) and Trump (66% of Trumps are Republicans) were both born with “appropriate” last names. Their short names suit them equally well: 74.5% of women named Kamala are registered as Democrats and 61% of Donalds are registered as Republicans.
#Presidential #Election #Ill #youre #voting
