Men called Nigel are twice as likely to support Nigel Farage’s UKIP party, compared with the rest of the population, new research suggests.

A YouGov poll assessing the voting intentions of 46,000 people found that the likelihood of someone supporting Nigel Farage went up from 16% to 31% if their name was Nigel, according to the Huffington Post.

Joe Twyman, YouGov's Head of Social and Political Research, 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 examined if a person's first name was a significant factor in determining how they were to vote.

“So for example, are Davids more likely to vote Conservative, are Edwards more likely to Labour and so forth,” Twyman added.

For each party, a different selection of names made the list.

Women called Charlotte, Fiona and Pauline were the most likely to vote Conservative, whereas those least likely to are Sharon, Samantha and Clare

Samantha Cameron supports her Conservative husband (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

(with Samantha Cameron being an obvious exception).

The strongest Labour supporters are named Michelle, June and Andy, whilst the Liberal democrat’s biggest backers are called Tim, Kathryn and Samantha.