Coincidence? First Name Most Inclined to Donate to Bernie Is "Karl"

By Steve Sailer

04/22/2016

Verdant Labs has crunched the federal political donation data by first names. Here are the first names most biased toward each of the Democratic candidates:

Names by bias toward Bernie Sanders

Below: The number of individuals with each name who contributed to this candidate vs. any of the top 5 candidates. Includes only names with at least 40 individuals. Excludes the candidates themselves.

Name Sanders Any %
Karl 34 71 47.9%
Ian 34 75 45.3%
Aaron 67 154 43.5%
Jacob 33 81 40.7%
Sean 72 177 40.7%
Luke 17 42 40.5%
Zachary 31 77 40.3%
Evan 35 90 38.9%
Ryan 67 176 38.1%
Tyler 20 53 37.7%

In other words, 71 guys named Karl have donated to current candidates and 34 of the Karls donated to Bernie. Coincidence? I’m reminded of Sir Francis Galton’s protégé Carl Pearson, the statistician and eugenicist, who changed his name to Karl Pearson in honor of you know who.

Otherwise, Bernie Bros really do have Bro names. Where’s Lucas?

Names by bias toward Hillary Clinton

Below: The number of individuals with each name who contributed to this candidate vs. any of the top 5 candidates. Includes only names with at least 40 individuals. Excludes the candidates themselves.

Name Clinton Any %
Mohammad 36 42 85.7%
Liz 43 51 84.3%
Juan 53 63 84.1%
Courtney 53 64 82.8%
Meredith 55 67 82.1%
Stacey 55 67 82.1%
Alexandra 84 103 81.6%
Carmen 39 48 81.3%
Katie 60 74 81.1%
Hilary 33 41 80.5%
I would think that people named “Hilary” would hold a grudge against Hillary for increasing the rate at which their names get misspelled. But, I guess not.

And now highest median donors by name:

Names with high donation medians

Below: Per name, the median of per-individual median amounts donated. Includes only names with at least 40 individuals. Excludes the candidates themselves.

Name Median donation
Akram $1000
Chaim $1000
Chana $1000
Dov $1000
Judah $1000
Mayer $1000
Mendel $1000
Mordechai $1000
Moshe $1000
Murat $1000
Navin $1000
Rivka $1000
Shlomo $1000
Shoshana $1000
Vishal $1000
Yehuda $1000
Javad $950
Ling $875
Meir $875
San $875
Zvi $850
Deedee $825
Jian $750
Kyung $750
Mehmet $750
People with normal American names — except Deedee — don’t really get the concept of being generous toward politicians. In contrast, other cultures seem to find American politicians to be bargains.

Since 1996, the most Republican-leaning first names among common American names are, in order:

The most common Democratic-leaning first names among common boys names are: This kind of stuff is useful if you are a novelist picking names for characters, although it’s not super-biased in real life. Ian is the most Democratic common boys name, and Ians go 66-34 for Democrats when it comes to donating. Alexes go 56-44 Democratic.

The most Republican name, Duane, goes GOP 67% of the time, while Bradley is 60-40 Republican.

Among common girls names, Kate is by the most Democratic donating, with 75% of Kates donating to the Ds rather than the Rs. Second place is Rachel at 69% Democratic. My off the top of the head theory is that women who call themselves Kate instead of Katherine, Kathleen, Kathy, etc., tend to be more feminist.

[Comment at Unz.com.]

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