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Democratic vs. Republican names

2016-04-13T00:00:00-07:00

We've taken another look at campaign contribution data — who contributes to whom? What patterns emerge when you look at Democrats vs. Republicans or candidates vs. each other?

For example, people named Chad tend to be Republicans, while Jonathans tend to be Democrats. Interesting stuff.

Check it out over at apprecs.com.

Now in Best American Infographics 2015!

2015-10-06T00:00:00-07:00

Earlier this year, we received a message from Gareth Cook, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor of the Best American Infographics book series. Apparently, one of our data visualizations had been selected "with help from a group of 25 top designers, including Nigel Holmes, John Grimwade, Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, and Nathan Yau" to be featured in this year's edition.

Our Top Disproportionately Common Names by Profession infographic is on pages 18-19. Very cool! The book was just released today -- we're really looking forward to receiving our copy.

Democratic vs. Republican occupations

2015-06-02T00:00:00-07:00

Are you an architect? It's likely that you're a Democrat. Pilot? Probably Republican. What about journalist? Fisherman? Bartender?

We've just posted a new chart that sheds light on this, the political bent of various professions. It's the third in a trio of visualizations sprouting from the data analysis we've been doing for the Nametrix baby names app.

The results are especially interesting when you juxtapose professions that are aligned or opposed in some way. Not surprisingly, environmentalists and oil workers are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Why, though, are pediatricians overwhelmingly Democratic while urologists are overwhelmingly Republican?

Delving deeper

A closer look at the Democrat to Republican ratios leads to more subtle and not-so-subtle contrasts. For example, preschool teachers are twice as likely as high school teachers to be Republican, while economics professors are 7 times as likely as English professors to be Republican. Here's "how Republican" some other professions are vs. others:

Restaurant owners: 4x as Republican as waitstaff
Truck drivers: 12x as Republican as taxi drivers
Car salespeople: 5x as Republican as retail salespeople
Prosecutors: 17x as Republican as public defenders
Motel owners: 4x as Republican as innkeepers

Here's the math

This analysis is possible because the Federal Election Commission (FEC) provides data that reveals who made what contribution to which political campaign, when they contributed, how much they contributed, what they call their occupation, and other info. We aggregated that data and applied a simple formula for each occupation:

Dem % for occupation = ^{# of people who primarily gave to Dems}/_{total Dem + Rep contributors}

A caveat with this methodology is that we assume Democrats and Republicans contribute at a similar rate to each other within each profession. In other words, we assume that a 75 / 25 split of contributions by Democratic teachers vs. Republican teachers translates to a 75 / 25 split of Democrat vs. Republican teachers in the general populace. If it's actually the case that, say, Republican teachers are looser with their wallets and have a higher per capita contribution rate, our ratio for that profession will be a bit skewed. Thus, the ratios should be viewed as approximate.

Just Launched - Nametrix for Android

2015-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

Until now, the answer to "Where can I get the Android version of Nametrix?" question has usually been "it's a few months away -- we're just getting started on it!"

Finally, FINALLY... It's ready. Here you go:

Yes, it's been a long time coming -- we launched Nametrix for iOS way back in 2012.

The Android version of the best baby name research app in our galaxy has some features that aren't yet in the iOS version. Most notably, there's a "Browse" tab within which you can explore lists of names by theme (nature, colors, mythology, etc.), popularity, or other criteria. The new, tab-based navigation is more intuitive, and there's the super useful ability to jump back to names you've recently looked at.

Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

Hannah, Emma, Joanna - Poet, Historian, or Venture Capitalist?

2014-12-30T00:00:00-08:00

In response to the title, Hannahs are particularly apt to be Poets, Emmas Historians, and Joannas Venture Capitalists.

Next question: What do August, Hannah, and Jules have in common?

It turns out that people with those names are more likely than others to be playwrights. How about Casey, Vincent, and Roy? Plumbers.

This name & profession correlation is another interesting phenomenon we encountered while building the name metrics for the Nametrix baby names app.

For any given profession, it turns out that there are certain names that appear more often in that profession than in the general population. Here's a chart with 6 of the names that are the most disproportionately common in 37 professions.

In our post on nameberry.com, we talk a bit about how the analysis works:

While developing the Nametrix app, we analyzed public records to find the most inordinately common names in each profession.

Take Elvis, for example. There aren’t all that many Elvises out there, but a particularly high percentage of them are musicians. As a result, Elvis ranks high among musician names. Elvis isn’t the most common name among musicians — that’s likely to be John or some other very popular name. What’s interesting is that it’s way more common among musicians than you might expect, given how rare it is. In other words, it’s common in that profession relative to its overall frequency.

Fortunately, the math behind this isn’t too complicated. Here’s another example, this time with some numbers. In our sample of two and a half million people, a whopping 1.9% of Arnolds are accountants. Contrast that with just 0.55% of Shanes. Arnolds therefore appear to have a much higher tendency to be accountants than Shanes.

...

So, do our names influence where we go in life? Or do the social, geographic, economic, and other factors that might have influenced how our parents named us also direct our career paths?

Here's the graphic in a few other formats:

The politics of names

2014-11-13T00:00:00-08:00

It turns out that Democrats prefer certain first names, and Republicans prefer others. We encountered this phenomenon while building the name metrics for the Nametrix baby names app.

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

For females, the most Democratic are Natasha and Maya, and the most Republican are Bailey and Brittney.

When you break out the male and female names, you can clearly see the political gender divide. Here are just the male names:

And here are the female names:

So, where does this phenomenon come from? Are our views significantly influenced by our names? That doesn't seem all that likely. More likely, Democrat parents prefer certain names (e.g., Noah), Republican parents prefer others (e.g., Trent), and their children inherit some of their politics.

That said, parents don't necessarily have the last word. Take the incoming Senate Majority Leader, for example. Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. is a Republican, but Mitchell is most often a Democratic name, and Addison is only slightly to the right. What about Mitch, the name he goes by, though? Solidly Republican.

Something else that's kind of interesting here is that the male name distribution tends to be shaped like a fish, with the Democrat side having a long tail that consists of names that are way more Democratic than Republican. If parents tend to pass down their political affiliations, maybe Republicans tend to be more conservative with male name choices (i.e., choices that have broader appeal). The female distribution is more symmetrical, so perhaps there's an equal desire for distinctive girl names by both parties.

The political affiliations are pulled from Federal Election Commission data, and the images were generated via D3.js (thanks to the visualization foundations laid by mbostock).

Here are the images in a sharper format (png rather than jpeg). Note that they don't show up properly on some mobile devices due to their width.

Nametrix - more factoids

2014-11-08T00:00:00-08:00

So, I played around a bit in Nametrix 2.1 today and thought this info's pretty interesting.

People with these names have the highest tendency to have these professions:

Plumber	Librarian	Bartender	Editor	Lawyer	Massage Therapist	Interior Designer
Casey	Nanette	Adam	Meg	Bari	Cynthia	Elissa
Salvatore	Margot	Jennifer	Fiona	Dionne	Katherine	Dianna
Vernon	Abigail	Christopher	Susanna	Bartley	Rebecca	Judi
Clifford	Johanna	Andrew	Eve	Shelton	Sandra	Jeannie
Vincent	Camille	Johnathan	Elise	Carlyle	Kathleen	Adele

Insurance Salesman	Bassist	Guitarist	Biologist	Car Salesman	Graphic Designer	Hair Stylist
Cordell	Nate	Jonny	Suzanne	Emmett	Naomi	Lori
Dalton	Jared	Mick	Karl	Luther	Gretchen	Eugene
Elwood	Dave	Richie	Dawn	Emanuel	Shelly	Raymond
Dell	Pete	Trey	Sara	Vic	Claire	Lisa
Fletcher	Simon	Sonny	Marcia	Morton	Toni	Karen

Some of the names with the highest tendency to be used by adult film actors/actresses:

Female: Kandi, Sindy, Rikki, Diamond, Honey, Roxy, Capri, Barbi, Stormy, Aspen
Male: Rodd, Kole, Rock, Maxx, Buck, Lucky, Deacon, Tad, Cash, Dillon, Brock

Esmeralda (daughter of Ryan Gosling & Eva Mendes):

A vintage name whose popularity peaked in the '90s
Esmeraldas tend to be Democrats by a wide margin
Potential sisters: Noemi, Giselle, Rubi, Delilah
Potential brothers: Damian, Ivan, Diego, Adan
Most popular in Latin America and Spain as well as the southwestern US

Wyatt (daughter of Ashton Kutcher & Mila Kunis):

Male Wyatts tend to be Actors, Entrepreneurs, and Lawyers

Nametrix 2.1

2014-11-04T00:00:00-08:00

We've just launched a huge upgrade to Nametrix and are excited to hear what you all think.

It's been a lot of fun building and playing with the new features. Is there something else you would like to see? Got any other comments? Post a review, send a tweet, and/or shoot us an e-mail!

What's New

More names. Added 10,000!
Countries. Where is the name most common?
Search filter. Search by popularity, trends, location, and more.
Siblings. What brother/sister names go with this one?
Tags. What are some interesting characteristics of the name?

Preview Video

App Store Description

Fun, unique, and powerful - an incredible baby names app!

• View origins & meanings
• Hear pronunciations
• View countries where each name is most common
• See similar names (e.g., you might like Sophia if you like Isabella)
• 100-year popularity graphs
• Name rankings by year
• Names for brothers/sisters
• Name variations
• Tags (e.g., Unisex, On Fire)
• Interactive popularity heat map
• Political party leanings
• Profession leanings
• Stripper name or not?
• Save and sort your favorites
• Share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Nametrix is chock full of real-world, data-driven analysis unrivaled by any other app, website, book, or anything else.

A sampling of what you'll find:

Emma
• Emma's most commonly found in Sweden, the UK, and Australia
• In the US, popularity peaked in 2003, but it's peaking again now
• It's currently the most popular name for girls in the US
• It's a vintage name, first popular in the early 1900s
• Other names you might like: Hannah, Abigail, Olivia, Lily
• Potential names for brothers: Samuel, Aiden, Noah, Marcus
• Variants include Ema, Emmah, Emme
• It's currently most popular in the southeastern part of the US
• Emmas have historically gravitated to creative professions such as Singer-songwriter
• Emmas have historically tended to be Democrats in the US
• Emma is not at all a "stripper name"

Top names for plumbers:
#1 Casey
#2 Salvatore
#3 Vernon
#4 Clifford
#5 Vincent

Top names for playwrights:
#1 August
#2 Hannah
#3 Jules
#4 Anton
#5 Duncan

As for other professions, can you guess what Lexus, Stormie, Chastity, and Bambi have in common?

Featured on Good Morning America, Freakonomics.com, New York Times, Babble, Mashable, Disney Baby, Babyology, Parents.com, CafeMom, USA Today, The Daily Dot, and many more.

Images

iPhone Screenshots

iPad Screenshots

Icons and Other Images

Nametrix 2 is Here!

2014-05-23T00:00:00-07:00

Apple has just approved version 2 of Nametrix, and it's now available in the app store. It's a relief that Apple didn't have an objection to the "P-star Quotient" feature... though they might have if it were called the "Pornstar" or "Stripper Name" quotient.

App Store Link

Landing Page

The snazzy new landing page is here:

What's New

P-star Quotient. This new feature could be a bit controversial. It essentially tells you how much of a "stripper name" a given name is. It's based on ratios of actors in adult films vs. non-adult films and is pretty interesting stuff...
Related Names. I'm frankly amazed at how well this works. It uses geographic popularity matrices to determine which names are closely related. Think of it along the lines of "parents similar to those who chose the name Lexus wound up choosing these other names (Madyson, Kaylyn, ...)."
UI Overhaul. Both the iPhone and iPad user experiences are now way better.
Name Search. Users clamored for this name search feature.
Bookmarks. You can now bookmark names.
2014 Data. The app is now built upon the latest available data. For popularity info, that means it has up through the end of 2013.

Discoveries

Here are some factoids uncovered while playing around with the app with the latest data.

Top 5 names for several professions

These names are most disproportionately common in these professions (not to be confused with the most common). For example, "Trey" is the #1 guitarist name, which means that Trey shows up very often in that profession relative to Trey's overall popularity.

Guitarist	Surgeon	Chef	Plumber	Car Salesman	Rancher	Librarian
Trey	Vivienne	Marcel	Casey	Emmett	Hollis	Nanette
Sonny	Harrison	Andreas	Salvatore	Luther	Eldon	Margot
Buddy	Jefferson	Marco	Vernon	Emanuel	Doyle	Abigail
Rusty	Bradford	Roland	Clifford	Morton	Shelby	Johanna
Robbie	Elliott	Guy	Vincent	Clay	Homer	Camille

Top Republican names

Some of the names that are disproportionately common among Republicans:

Bridger
Beckham
Gannon
Tyrell
Brody
Gunner
Atticus
Octavius
Princeton
Orville
Ammon
Chrissy
Ashlee
Brigham
Tyson
Cletus
Clair
Twila
Chad
Sawyer
Nixon
Truman
Jefferson
Debbi
Grayson

Top Democrat names

Some of the names that are disproportionately common among Democrats:

Lyric
Shakira
Tamika
Latoya
Willow
Maia
Maya
Booker
Ebony
Ivory
Sunshine
Roosevelt
Alexa
Greyson
Amelie
Harmony
Jonah
Sinead

Top Stripper Names (Male)

Some of the names that are disproportionately common among actors in Adult movies:

Kayden
Archer
Maxx
Tylor
Tad
Cash
Jax
Jaxon
Dillon
Brock
Jayden
Keanu
Kip
Maverick
Ty
Chaz
Elmo
Odin
Rod
Duke

Top Stripper Names (Female)

Some of the names that are disproportionately common among actresses in Adult movies:

Jaylynn, Jaelyn, Jaylyn
Neveah, Nevaeh, Heaven
Nautica
Laylah
Rihanna
Mylie, Miley
Cali
Lexus
Roxy
Capri
Candy, Candi
Mya
Stormy, Stormie, Windy, Rayne, Sunny
Delilah
Unique
Bambi
London, Paris, Aspen, Chyna
Scarlett, Scarlet

Stats for some of the most popular names

Noah (M)

Most popular boy's name in 2013. Most popular it's ever been (gained popularity in the mid-90s).
Most popular in the Midwestern US.
Noahs are disproportionately in the film industry (editors, actors, screenwriters, producers, directors).
Noahs have tended to be Democrats, as they've disproportionately contributed to the Democratic party.
Geographic popularity analysis reveals that these names are similar: Ethan, Joshua, Nathaniel, Brandon, Jordan, Jacob, Samuel, Jonah, Aiden, Dylan

Sophia (F)

Most popular girl's name in 2013. Popularity peaked in 2012.
Most popular in the Northeastern US.
Sophias are disproporionately in creative/arts careers (singers, actresses, writers).
Sophias overwhelmingly tend to be Democrats.
Similar names: Eva, Isabella, Stephanie, Melissa, Michelle, Arianna, Mikaela, Naomi, Sabrina, Penelope

Jayden (M)

#9 in 2013, peaked in 2010.
Though typically a Boy's name, has had some popularity for Girls
Has a high P-Star Quotient; 8 adult film stars out of 77 total actors (~10%)

Scarlett (F)

#42 in 2013
Most popular in the American Southwest
Slight tendency to be Republican
Has a high P-Star Quotient; 24 adult film stars out of 171 total actresses (~14%)

Blog

Democratic vs. Republican names

Now in Best American Infographics 2015!

Democratic vs. Republican occupations

Delving deeper

Here's the math

Links

Just Launched - Nametrix for Android

Hannah, Emma, Joanna - Poet, Historian, or Venture Capitalist?

The politics of names

Nametrix - more factoids

Nametrix 2.1

What's New

Preview Video

App Store Description

Images

iPhone Screenshots

iPad Screenshots

Icons and Other Images

Nametrix 2 is Here!

App Store Link

Landing Page

What's New

Discoveries

Top 5 names for several professions

Top Republican names

Top Democrat names

Top Stripper Names (Male)

Top Stripper Names (Female)

Stats for some of the most popular names

Noah (M)

Sophia (F)

Jayden (M)

Scarlett (F)