Nigel Farage Twice As Likely To Be Supported By Other Nigels

If your name is Nigel you are around twice as likely as the general population to vote Ukip, according to new research.

Support for Nigel Farage's party went up from 16% to 31% among men named Nigel, YouGov's study of 46,000 people's voting intentions found.

The poll also showed the women called Samantha are among the least likely to support the Tories, so David Cameron's wife Samantha Cameron is breaking a trend.

Joe Twyman, YouGov's head of social and political research, said the idea of the research was to look at whether a person's first name had any bearing on how they vote.

From the moment his parents named him 'Nigel', he was destined to lead Ukip

"So for example, are Davids more likely to vote Conservative, are Edwards more likely to Labour and so forth," he added.

The study initially considered the leaders' first names and their variants and found it makes very little difference.

Twyman said: "This is perhaps not surprising, but what was interesting was, if your name is Nigel you are almost twice as likely to vote Ukip compared to the national average.

"It is not actually that by giving somebody the name Nigel you bestow upon them certain views. Nigel tends to be a name for older men. You don't hear people saying 'we have named him Nigel'.

"It is an older man's name and older men tend to be more likely to vote Ukip."

The research also looked at the 130 most common names to determine which were the most and least likely to vote for the various political parties.

Twyman added: "We were able to identify the three most likely to vote for each of the four parties and the least likely."

The three names most likely to vote for the Conservative party are Charlotte, Fiona and Pauline whereas those least likely to are Sharon, Samantha - unfortunately for the prime minister - and Clare without an I.

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The three most likely to vote for Labour are Michelle, June and Andy and the least likely Nigel, Nick and Jonathan.

The most likely Liberal Democrat voting names are Tim, Kathryn and Samantha, whereas Lynne, Joan and June are the least likely.

Those most likely to vote Ukip are called Jill, Nigel and Terry, while Tom, Rachel and Alex are the least likely.

Twyman, whose research featured on BBC Radio 4's Campaign Sidebar, said even the spelling of a name could make a difference.

Ann without an E came 27th in the list of most likely to vote Conservative, while Anne with one was fourth.

Similarly, Carol without an E came 102nd in the list of names most likely to vote Conservative, while Carole with one was 14th.