Surprisingly, Atillas are fairly liberal; Adolfs less so

October 17, 2014 9:38 AM

How Liberal or Conservative is your name? A rare "what x are you?" online tool which is apparently based on real data. There is no need to search for the most liberal of all (past and present) MeFi moderator names, I've already done that for you.
posted by Curious Artificer (79 comments total)

Ain't that some BS. Or is being an uber limousine liberal just a fiction of my imagination?
posted by jsavimbi at 9:42 AM on October 17, 2014

Zoe: 7.1L
Zelda: 4.9L

Diane: 1.8L
posted by Going To Maine at 9:43 AM on October 17, 2014 [7 favorites]

There are 890 names more liberal than mine but that's not surprising since my first name peaked in popularity in 1910 so at 50, I'm probably one of the youngest Americans with my name.

names are more conservative than #{MYNAME} including:
Clarence, Irvin, Harold

Heh, my paternal grandfather was Irvin so I guess that I could have easily gotten an even worse name than the one I did get.
posted by octothorpe at 9:47 AM on October 17, 2014

Most liberal: Natasha
Most conservative: Doyle

Huh.
posted by mochapickle at 9:49 AM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I thought The Fonz would carry me through here, but no.
posted by Artw at 9:49 AM on October 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Just by dicking around with random names, I stumbled upon the archest of arch-conservative monikers: Eustis, with a 10+C. Wow.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:49 AM on October 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

4.1C. I get the same score as "George"
posted by leotrotsky at 9:51 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

It doesn't know my name, just like everyone else in this cold and miserable world.
posted by Mister_A at 9:52 AM on October 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

Although it's actually pretty nice out. The cold bit was a metaphor.
posted by Mister_A at 9:52 AM on October 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

Conservativist names: Eldon, Doyle, Billy, Homer.

Liberalist names: Abigail, Meghan, Alexandra, Gabrielle.

(You'd think they'd control for gender.)
posted by leotrotsky at 9:54 AM on October 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

How Democratic is your name?
What Does Your Last Name Say About Your Politics?
posted by Kabanos at 9:57 AM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well, Jesus comes in at 1.4 liberal, so that's that.
posted by mygoditsbob at 10:00 AM on October 17, 2014 [14 favorites]

Scooter is the most conservative name.
posted by Thing at 10:04 AM on October 17, 2014

It's interesting to compare names and their nicknames.

Margaret: 1.6 L
Meg: 8.1 L vs. Peggy: 0.9 C

or

Billy: 8.5 C
Bill: 5.2 C
William: 4.4 C
Will: 0.9C
Willy: 0.1 L

It follows a pattern, weirdly enough. Nothing for "Billiam", however, so it's incomplete.
posted by DGStieber at 10:04 AM on October 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Africa is the most liberal name.
posted by Thing at 10:05 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

For me, like mochapickle, it said no name is more liberal than Natasha and no name is more conservative than Doyle. I wonder how/why Strange Interlude got Eustis (which I don't think I ever encountered in my life but seems traditional/southern).

I find the results odd. My daughter has an uncommon old traditional Scottish name which has a 7.5L and apparently near the tops of the chart. I would have thought a traditional name would fall on the other side. My son, on the other hand, has a straight up wispy granola name, but it somehow has a 4.0C. I would have predicted the exact opposite. Luckily, we don't have a political household, so hopefully there isn't much fighting between the two of them.
posted by dios at 10:09 AM on October 17, 2014

Jason is 0.0L, but the names that are more liberal or conservative are not exactly 50-50, so the most middle-of-the-road name has yet to be found.
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:10 AM on October 17, 2014

Eustis is just a variant of Eustace, as in Eustace Scrubb, hero of certain notably popular books.
posted by sonic meat machine at 10:11 AM on October 17, 2014

Those of us with common names seem to score in the 3.5c or higher range, even we (I) do not self-identify as conservative.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 10:12 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

What is Crowdpac? Crowdpac helps you find political candidates that match your priorities. Our unique data model shows you where politicians stand on the issues, based on what they say, how they vote and who gives them money.

Geez, developing priorities sounds like a lot of work. Can't you just tell me what candidates to vote for based on what my name is?
posted by muddgirl at 10:12 AM on October 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I suppose it's too much to ask that they tell you what this is and how it works before you volunteer some data.

Crowdpac calculates this score based on the average of all campaign contributions made by people with this name since 1980. 10L is the most liberal; 10C is the most conservative.

Why don't you say this on the lid, Crowdpac? I don't know who you are, but "donates the most money to election campaigns" != "most liberal or conservative".

What about all the impoverished crazies on both ends of this spectrum
Or those who can't find a candidate extreme enough for them
Or who don't believe in donating money to political campaigns
Or who don't know how to donate
Or who don't see how this correlation has any meaning?
 
posted by Herodios at 10:12 AM on October 17, 2014

Alternate spellings of my first name (Alison/7.5 L) are more conservative. Weird.
posted by thivaia at 10:14 AM on October 17, 2014

It's probably hard to get data on those people Herodios. I think they were just trying to use the data set they did have (donations) in a way that would be clickbait.
posted by dios at 10:15 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Heh, all of my names are all on the conservative side of the spectrum (my last name is common enough as a first name, and vice versa, that people often get confused when it's printed Last, First). Surely a lot of this is just down to average age of parents, though?
posted by en forme de poire at 10:15 AM on October 17, 2014

I think it's looking at who gets the donation and how much, because while Sarahs are more liberal than Elizabeths, Elizabeths are more likely than average to donate while Sarahs are less likely than average.
posted by muddgirl at 10:15 AM on October 17, 2014

It's probably . . . just . . . clickbait.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:17 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Africa is the most liberal name.

Blanka also has an impressive 10+L, and a deadly face-biting attack.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:17 AM on October 17, 2014 [14 favorites]

2 names are more conservative than Eldon including:
Doyle
Billy

GOOD OL' BILLY DOYLE.
posted by symbioid at 10:17 AM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

This revelation might shake things up in the Middle East.
posted by vorpal bunny at 10:18 AM on October 17, 2014

Now that I think about it, the first name "Americans" should be exactly dead center;

Because by far the biggest contributors to election campaigns have names that start with "Americans for . . . "
 
posted by Herodios at 10:18 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

No data for Pilot Inspektor. We'll just have to wait a couple decades to find out.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:19 AM on October 17, 2014

Sorry, we couldn't find data for that name, try another one.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:20 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

It would be nice if I could just look at the master list instead of giving some creepy thinktank any personal information.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:22 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

My last name is moderately liberal. My first and middle names are (very) slightly conservative. Oddly, the common spelling variations of my first name are significantly conservative. My sister's name is liberal and her husband's name makes Jessamyn look like a member of the Tea Party.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:24 AM on October 17, 2014

It would be nice if I could just look at the master list instead of giving some creepy thinktank any personal information.

If it's free on the internet . . .
 
posted by Herodios at 10:24 AM on October 17, 2014

I don't think we're really giving anyone any personal information by typing random names into a search box. It's probably not like anyone at Crowdpac is saying "Wow, sure are a lot of Natashas and Eustises looking themselves up today!"
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:29 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I found another most-liberal name: Zoey.

I suspect they don't divide it up be gender because the contribution list doesn't specify gender, and it'd be tricky to pick out and research all the gender-neutral names: Chris, Pat, Ashley, etc.
posted by mochapickle at 10:35 AM on October 17, 2014

Spelling my name as the u-variant is dead centre, but spelling it as I do (like all right-thinking folks should) makes it 2.8C
posted by scruss at 10:55 AM on October 17, 2014

Previously on Metafilter: How Democratic or Republican is your first name?
posted by pmdboi at 10:57 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Weird, Timothy is less likely to contribute to a campaign than the average citizen, but Tim is 5x as likely to contribute. I think this thing might be bullshit.
posted by Timmoy Daen at 10:58 AM on October 17, 2014

My legal name and my nick name are pretty far out of whack.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:00 AM on October 17, 2014

"bruce" weighs in at 2.6c. if i hadn't prevailed in a name war when i was 7-8 y.o., you might have known me as "warren" (4.7c). is somebody going to ask me how i feel about sons being called by the same name as their fathers?
posted by bruce at 11:07 AM on October 17, 2014

#{MYNAME} got 4.1c; I'm closer to 6.0l.I go by my middle name; #{MYFIRSTNAME} is 4.2c.

Ayn got 6.1l. Maybe the scales are reversed?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2014

My name is literally the most liberal name! :)
posted by triggerfinger at 11:16 AM on October 17, 2014

Also, Ward is more conservative than my first name and Wally is more conservative than my middle name. Checking up on the other Cleavers, June is 1.3c and Theodore is 1.6c ("Beaver" is 3.4c). Eddie is 3.5c and Clarence is 4.4c. (No love for "Lumpy.")
posted by kirkaracha at 11:16 AM on October 17, 2014

First name, 4.1C. Middle name, 0.5L. Maybe I need to have another round of going by middle name the way I did when I was a teenager. (First name also skews middle aged and middle name doesn't show in the top 1000, which confirms my biases about conservative and liberal naming trends.)
posted by immlass at 11:24 AM on October 17, 2014

Mine scored 0.2C, which close enough to zero to make me feel guilty for not being a better liberal and pushing it the rest of the way there.

That's how it works, right?
posted by aubilenon at 11:25 AM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

People with the name Noam are 3x more likely to contribute to a campaign than the average citizen.
LIBERAL RANKING
1 name is more liberal than Noam: Natasha
posted by mean square error at 11:30 AM on October 17, 2014

My first name (Emily) comes up as 5.4 Liberal, which is entirely unsurprising. The name surged in popularity relatively recently, so many people with that same first name are going to be relatively young.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:35 AM on October 17, 2014

It doesn't matter. Within a few years, all male children will be named Jaden. They will each have a totally unique spelling of it. And this sort of statistical inference will be totally invalidated.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:45 AM on October 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Jimmy - 7.6C
Jimi - 2.2C

How is Jimi not at least a little L?
posted by InfidelZombie at 11:56 AM on October 17, 2014

Barbie is 2.1 conservative but that may be mixing both Malibu and Klaus in there.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:10 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

What's the most conservative women's name you guys can find? My current record is Lucile at 2.4C. Candy, interestingly, comes in at 2.0C.
posted by mhum at 12:14 PM on October 17, 2014

I got Nat: 0.0L.

Makes sense, I am a centrist. Lol, DEAD CENTRIST, according to this.
posted by niphates at 12:14 PM on October 17, 2014

986 names are more conservative than Sara including:
Lon Hank Earl

They're not exactly interchangeable.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:17 PM on October 17, 2014

I have two liberal cats (Anastasia and Neville) and one very conservative cat (Jack). Meanwhile, Daenerys is peeved that her name isn't listed, and is off to pee on someone's bathmat.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:17 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

What's the most conservative women's name you guys can find? My current record is Lucile at 2.4C. Candy, interestingly, comes in at 2.0C.

So far, Betty at 3.3C.
posted by mochapickle at 12:22 PM on October 17, 2014

mochapickle: "So far, Betty at 3.3C."

Nice one. But now I'll see your Betty (White) and raise you a Dixie (Carter) at a whopping 4.1C.
posted by mhum at 12:32 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ma comes in as 3.8C.
Pa is 3.2C.
posted by Kabanos at 12:36 PM on October 17, 2014

Opal: 6.0 C
posted by Kabanos at 12:39 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hyacinth hit 10+L!
posted by Kabanos at 12:40 PM on October 17, 2014

Kabanos: "Opal: 6.0 C"

Holy shit. Those are amazing.

I'm guessing the commonality here are names which were popular in the 1940s or earlier and never again -- unlike, say, Emma or Adelaide which were huge at the end of the 19th century, steadily declined through most of the 20th century but then suddenly became popular again in the 1980s through today.
posted by mhum at 12:45 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Only 4 names more liberal than mine, I am liberal, liberaler than thou!
posted by supercrayon at 12:51 PM on October 17, 2014

So is this based on the name you go by or what is written on your birth certificate?
posted by zixyer at 1:04 PM on October 17, 2014

Can someone please explain the methodology to me.

Crowdpac calculates this score based on the average of all campaign contributions made by people with this name since 1980. 10L is the most liberal; 10C is the most conservative.

and

People with the name Natasha [10L] are less likely to contribute to a campaign than the average citizen.

So does this mean that there were basically one or two (or some very low number) of Natashas that made really huge campaign contributions since 1980?
posted by triggerfinger at 2:04 PM on October 17, 2014

Elliott 1.4L
Elliot 3.4L
Eliot 5.8L
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 2:41 PM on October 17, 2014

Happily surprised to be liberal since my name is biblical and I thought that would skew towards the conservative end.
posted by rmless at 3:00 PM on October 17, 2014

So it looks like Willow is the most liberal possible name. What's the most conservative?
posted by zixyer at 3:59 PM on October 17, 2014

That would be Dark Willow obviously.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:02 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

There is no name more liberal than mine.
posted by divabat at 4:12 PM on October 17, 2014

Incidentally, for those wondering, this works in exactly the same way that positions of members of congress are figured out from their voting records. The modern method is that you don't have to know anything about the bills -- you just use the data of who voted for or against each bill, do some math, and voila, you have a ranking of all the legislators. Similarly, you can do the same for political donors, except instead of votes for bills, it's contributions to candidates. But you don't need to know anything about the donors or the candidates; in the first case all you need is the vote matrix, and in the second, all you need is the donation matrix. Once you've scaled hundreds of thousands of donors, you just take the average ideology over first names. Or at least, that's how I presume it works based on who designed the system. (The "Campaign Contributions" box that tells you how much people of that name donated is a separate datum, calculated just by taking mean donation levels by name.)
posted by chortly at 4:24 PM on October 17, 2014

I'm beginning to suspect that this quiz may not be 100% accurate.
posted by triggerfinger at 4:43 PM on October 17, 2014

Take note: there are 0 names more conservative than Bubba.
posted by Hello, Revelers! I am Captain Lavender! at 5:12 PM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

My name with its actual, slightly unusual, spelling: 3.2L
With more usual spelling: 1.1C
Thanks, Mom and Dad.
posted by librosegretti at 6:18 PM on October 17, 2014

I received a 0.0l, I suspect that my name breaks it.
posted by Xeiliex at 10:41 PM on October 17, 2014

You must have done; I got the same score! Actually, I'm surprised it didn't come back as very conservative so that's good.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:53 AM on October 18, 2014

Cynically, I did not expect this to have my first name, which is Alok, because my first name is never in these things.

Except, mine is in this thing. And it's 8.5L. Only 5 names are more liberal. Aloks are 11x more likely to contribute to a liberal campaign than the average. That's...probably about right.
posted by Errant at 3:45 PM on October 18, 2014

BORT - Sorry, we couldn't find data for that name, try another one.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:12 PM on October 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Elizabeth - 3.0L
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 8:33 AM on October 19, 2014