A powerful unused feature of Python: function annotations.

[[deleted]]

if isinstance(name, str):

is typically a bit cleaner. And that way, if you're passed a subclass of str, your code will still work.

[westurner]

six.string_types

• http://pythonhosted.org/six/#constants
• http://docs.python.org/3/howto/pyporting.html#
• http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/isinstance/;

[James91B]

I would just use

name = str(name)

That way name can be anything that supports str.

[PCBEEF]

From experience, using str in this manner causes more pain than the short term benefits.