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The most Republican and Democratic names, in charts

Libby Nelson is Vox's policy editor, leading coverage of how government action and inaction shape American life. Libby has more than a decade of policy journalism experience, including at Inside Higher Ed and Politico. She joined Vox in 2014.

The creators of Nametrix, a baby-name app, pulled data from the Federal Election Commission to find out which names are more likely to donate to Democrats, and which to Republicans. Here's a small part of the chart showing the most Republican names, suggesting that if you're a political donor named Brent, Troy, or Darrell, you're more likely to have given to Republicans:

Most Republican names

(Nametrix)

Here's a link to the whole chart. Meanwhile, Hannah, Alexandra, Ethan, and Sophia are more likely to give to Democrats:

Most Democratic names

(Nametrix)

Names can be a stand-in all kinds of things — gender, culture, religion, socioeconomic class, even whether your parents watch Game of Thrones. If you look at the full chart, the gender gap between Republicans and Democrats shows up right away — the more Republican names are predominantly male, while the Democratic side has many more women. While the data wasn't broken down by age, the names that trend most strongly Democratic also tend to sound somewhat younger than the most Republican names: "Erica" and "Mia" versus "Duane," "Virgil," and "Rex."

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