Amazon Killed the Name Alexa (theatlantic.com) 125
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Atlantic: Alexa used to be a name primarily given to human babies. Now it's mainly for robots. Seven years ago, Amazon released Alexa, its voice assistant, and as the number of devices answering to that name has skyrocketed, its popularity with American parents has plummeted. In fact, it has suffered one of the sharpest declines of any popular name in recent years. "Alexa stands alone as a name that was steadily popular -- not a one-year celebrity wonder, not a fading past favorite -- that was pushed off the popularity cliff," Laura Wattenberg, the founder of the naming-trends website Namerology, told me.
At first, the number of baby Alexas spiked following the voice assistant's rollout in late 2014 -- perhaps parents heard the name in the news and liked it -- but it has since crashed. Likely, parents began to realize that having the name could be a nuisance, or worse, could become associated with subservience, because people are always giving orders to their virtual Alexas. This up-and-down pattern reminded Wattenberg of what happens with babies named after hurricanes, when "the news coverage and attention causes the name to briefly shoot up, and then the aftermath, when the name is constantly referred to as a disaster, kind of kills it off." Basically, Amazon's impact on the name Alexa resembles that of a natural disaster.
The data on baby names released by the Social Security Administration don't indicate why parents pick or avoid particular names, but Alexa's trajectory mirrors the adoption of smart speakers in the U.S. Bret Kinsella, the founder of Voicebot.ai, a site that covers and analyzes data on the voice-assistant industry, told me that consumer uptake surged three years after Alexa's release, in 2017. And the number of baby Alexas plunged below its pre-Amazon baseline in 2018 -- that may be when many parents started to understand the ubiquity of the name. (Now more than 90 million American adults are estimated to have a smart speaker in their household.) "The voice assistant's debut in the United Kingdom (in 2016) and in Canada (in 2017) were also followed by drop-offs in baby Alexas," the report adds.
"Amazon did not exactly ruin the life of every Alexa, but the consequences of its decision seven years ago are far-reaching -- roughly 127,000 American baby girls were named Alexa in the past 50 years, and more than 75,000 of them are younger than 18. Amazon didn't take their perfectly good name out of malice, but regardless, it's not giving it back."
At first, the number of baby Alexas spiked following the voice assistant's rollout in late 2014 -- perhaps parents heard the name in the news and liked it -- but it has since crashed. Likely, parents began to realize that having the name could be a nuisance, or worse, could become associated with subservience, because people are always giving orders to their virtual Alexas. This up-and-down pattern reminded Wattenberg of what happens with babies named after hurricanes, when "the news coverage and attention causes the name to briefly shoot up, and then the aftermath, when the name is constantly referred to as a disaster, kind of kills it off." Basically, Amazon's impact on the name Alexa resembles that of a natural disaster.
The data on baby names released by the Social Security Administration don't indicate why parents pick or avoid particular names, but Alexa's trajectory mirrors the adoption of smart speakers in the U.S. Bret Kinsella, the founder of Voicebot.ai, a site that covers and analyzes data on the voice-assistant industry, told me that consumer uptake surged three years after Alexa's release, in 2017. And the number of baby Alexas plunged below its pre-Amazon baseline in 2018 -- that may be when many parents started to understand the ubiquity of the name. (Now more than 90 million American adults are estimated to have a smart speaker in their household.) "The voice assistant's debut in the United Kingdom (in 2016) and in Canada (in 2017) were also followed by drop-offs in baby Alexas," the report adds.
"Amazon did not exactly ruin the life of every Alexa, but the consequences of its decision seven years ago are far-reaching -- roughly 127,000 American baby girls were named Alexa in the past 50 years, and more than 75,000 of them are younger than 18. Amazon didn't take their perfectly good name out of malice, but regardless, it's not giving it back."
This is how big Amazon is (Score:5, Interesting)
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So some trust fund babies have a different name now than they otherwise would have. What's the big deal? I'm sure all those Heathers and Courtney's don't really care.
Re:This is how big Amazon is (Score:4, Funny)
Ok, Karen.
Re:This is how big Amazon is (Score:5, Interesting)
Also a name with a popularity in sharp decline [today.com].
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The real problem is for people who are already stuck with the name Alexa or Siri etc. Can you imagine what it would be like everyone uses their name? You'd constantly be getting smart devices butting into your conversation.
I'm really grateful that the "Viv" service hasn't seem to have taken off.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/05... [techcrunch.com]
I really feel bad for women who had the perfectly reasonable name Karen before it got it's current meaning.
Re: This is how big Amazon is (Score:3)
All this just makes me hate voice control even more.
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All this just makes me hate voice control even more.
I particularly dislike voice control, because I am often unable to speak, following a throat operation. So when my mobile phone asks me to say my name to get access to voicemail, I get a bit upset, to put it mildly. Even when I can speak, I say odd things that a computer can't understand. Artificial intelligence? You're joking right? No stupid person I know could be as stupid as some algorithms of my acquaintance.
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More apt would be "Jinping".
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"The real problem is for people who are already stuck with the name Alexa or Siri etc. Can you imagine what it would be like everyone uses their name? "
Well, 7 billion people have the very same door gong apparently, because hundreds of million stand up each time one rings on the TV.
Ditto for the default iPhone ringtone.
Re:This is how big Amazon is (Score:5, Interesting)
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Lolita is a nickname. It means 'little Lola', i.e. Lola + 'ita' diminutive suffix. Lola itself is a nickname derived from María Dolores (English translation = Mary Pains). So María Dolores can go back to calling herself Lola instead.
Likewise, Alexa = Alexandra. She change her nickname to Sandra or even Sandy... oh, wait a minute...
Re:This is how big Amazon is (Score:4, Interesting)
See, the more you know. And here I just thought Lola was a showgirl or transvestite.
Re:This is how big Amazon is (Score:5, Funny)
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If I had mod points, I would give you a "Funny" but I don't think many Slashdot readers get the reference.
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Back in high school, we had to transcribe the Spanish version of Copacabana in Spanish class. I'm guessing that's what the reference was.
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Nobody is named Judas anymore either.
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Nobody is named Judas anymore either.
Except Judas Priest, of course.
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Nobody is named Judas anymore either.
Except Judas Priest, of course.
My dad (WW II vet) used to say "Judas Priest" as an interjection all the time. It was obviously a minced oath [wikipedia.org] for "Jesus Christ" which I'm sure my piously Catholic mother wouldn't have let him get away with. I'd never heard anyone else say it or seen it in print, so I was amused when the band Judas Priest appeared in the 70s. Until now when I just googled it, I assumed it was of British origin (as is the band), but it appears to be American.
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Well, at least not using that particular form of the English transliteration. Yehuda, Judah, and the unable-to-be-rendered-in-this-encoding Hebrew equivalent (YHVDH) still seem to be fairly common.
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Works the other way too, popular books and TV shows lead to increases in names like Willow, Harry and even Khaleesi.
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I mean, as long as you dont count strip clubs
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It's the name of the daughter of an early Mercedes dealer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
no way (Score:2)
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That's a false attribution. There are literally countless events, products, and associations which cause the names to gain or lose popularity. This isn't a reflection of Amazon's size in the slightest, just the commonality of a name. Heck the name hasn't even fallen by that much.
It's dropped by 1/4 over 6 years. Not that much different than the popularity of the name Mercedes in the 00s.
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Heck the name hasn't even fallen by that much.
It's dropped by 1/4 over 6 years.
Your graph reading skills could use improvement. The graph in the article shows popularity going from about 1050 to 1500 (a nearly 50% spike) in one year, then a steep steady decline to about 325 in 2020 which is a 70% drop since 2014 and and an 80% drop since 2015, and if this straight line down continues, going to zero by next year.
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You're assuming I read the graph in TFA. I didn't. I read the graph on another website which actually gave me a frame of reference to compare to.
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There are names worse than Adolf [dailymail.co.uk]. At least a government is doing something about that [time.com].
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Good thing the guy wasn't a fan of Goatse or Somethingawful...
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Argentina also regulates baby names. They actually a registry of approved names to use.
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Ditto Japan, though I don't think they have an actual blacklist.
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My bad. I should have said "actual whitelist".
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It took the rise and fall of Hitler to change the usage of Adolf [wikipedia.org]. It took Amazon just a little gadget and some marketing to monopolize Alexa.
Also killed a style of moustache.
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Unintended Consequences (Score:3)
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Re:Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's really, really minor if your name is Joshua. If you generally go by the name "Alexa", then I'm pretty sure it's properly shit.
Say you're a kid in school. One kid says "Alexa - fetch me my school bag", and the class laughs, the teacher tells them to shut up and hopefully that's the end of it. But then another kid says "Alexa, give me your homework"... and so it goes on - all day, every day. Then things get proper bad... Alexa is walking home, and the school "lads" come along, "Alexa, give me a blowjob" etc etc start happening. Now, the Janes, Karens, or Lily's might be getting bullied too - and may be getting worse things said to them, but even they probably don't get it quite as constantly.
Ultimately, if you're a teenager called Alexa, it (probably) never stops for you. Even people you don't know, on finding out your name is Alexa will think they're making a funny, completely unique joke, but of course, for the recipient, it's just one more groan in a long line of them. Even if no harm was meant, it's still a "thing" you've got to deal with - and it happens several times a day, every day.
There was a thing on the news about this - it's got that bad that maintream media is talking about it. Kids changing their names, changing schools and even moving home so they can "start again" without being called Alexa. That's not a "really really minor" thing at all.
You'll note that far, far less people are called Siri, or "OK Google", so Amazon is most definitely the outlier here. They also have the most market penetration, so they're the biggest install base. They've apparently got other name options, but Alexa remains the default - and the one they still advertise/promote, so the alternative names are kind of pointless. It's a change Amazon could make, but thus far, they've taken the same view as you in that it's a "really, really minor" issue for a few people, so they, a multi-billion dollar company need do nothing at all. Articles such as this point out it's not "really, really minor" and that there used to be quite a lot of Alexas around, but it's all but impossible to keep the name unless you're somehow immune from a constant barrage of abuse of varying severity.
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Ultimately, if you're a teenager called Alexa, it (probably) never stops for you. Even people you don't know, on finding out your name is Alexa will think they're making a funny, completely unique joke...
I can't help thinking of the Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue". Also, remember that John Wayne's given name was Marion.
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My wife's name is Roxanne. She was in high school in 1979, the year that The Police released a certain pop
Meh (Score:2)
Were soundex similar names like Alexis or Lexa also affected?
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
"Alexa" is not a formal, real name anyway. The Alexandras of the world can call themselves by their full name, or "Zandra", or whatever.
If your parents gave you a slang name on your birth certificate, Alexa is like "Joe" instead of Joseph, Jack instead of John, blame them.
But it could be worse. They might have given you a surname as first name, like Jackson, Brady or Cooper.
Or worse still, a made-up or mis-spelled [sic] name to make you yoo-nique. Jaxon, Destinee - I'm pitying you.
Fortunately for the next generation, those fads seem to have largely passed.
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What makes something a format real name? I am not aware of any name standards in most countries. There is nothing wrong with naming a child Alexa, Joe, Jack etc.
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This funny business of using a famous surname as a forename seems to be a US oddity, which gives me some amusement in the UK. Mind you, the full title of our glorious leader has some cause for merriment. Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson. How did that Frenchy bit get in there? Bloody Normans. I reckon that name was put in there because it is impossible to say without spitting your champagne and canapes.
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Ok Google. (Score:3)
Couldn't they simply have used 'Amazon' instead of 'Alexa'. Do some people really need a human-like name?
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For one human-like names help with anthropomorphization, which is probably what Amazon went for.
Though of course it sucks that they choose such a rather common name, because if you name your kid like that, calling it by name out loud is going to trigger that eavesdropping device inadvertently as well.
Apple was a bit smarter with Siri there in my opinion. It is a human-like name [wikipedia.org], but a rather exotic one.
Re:Ok Google. (Score:4, Funny)
Cuda used chad, or Karen
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But Florida killed Chad in 2000.
(Obligatory joke attempt. So shoot it.)
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This is just awful! (Score:5, Funny)
I pitied my cousin but at least she had a cool first name. Now nobody wants anything to do with my poor cousin, Alexa Hitler. :(
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my poor cousin, Alexa Hitler. :(
Fortunately for the Germans, Hitler was a very rare name. A bit like "Trump" in America, a recent ancestor had changed the name.
But Adolph is a common name for Germans over the age of 76, and remains a popular name in Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries.
Many Boys from Brazil are Adolpho.
Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
Woman2: You know there’s nothing wrong with that name.
Woman1: There was nothing wrong with it until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started slinging goods.
Woman2: Hmm well why don’t you just go by Alex instead of Alexa?
Woman1: No way. Why should I change? I’m not the one who sucks.
Nobody names their kid Siri anymore either..... (Score:3)
I think it's still cool to name your daughter Cortana, thankfully.
Seriously, with ALL the possible baby names to choose from, and with people making up new spellings or names made by chopping up parts of others and re-assembling them? I think the loss of Alexa is going to be kind of a non-issue.
You can change the response word on to, too.... so if you DO happen to have a human in the family named Alexa? You can make your own Amazon devices respond to "Crackhead" or whatever seems fitting.
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No one uses cortana so it is still safe
Dear Amazon: (Score:5, Funny)
You ruined the name "Alexa."
Sincerely,
Karen
Re:Dear Amazon: (Score:5, Funny)
Yours,
Rick Santorum
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No thread complete without trashing Microsoft (Score:2)
Re:Dear Amazon: (Score:5, Funny)
They also ruined the name "Echo" but no one cares about that.
They also ruined the name "Echo" but no one cares about that.
Well ... (Score:3)
Amazon did not exactly ruin the life of every Alexa, ...
I know a woman with a daughter named Alexa -- born before the devices were created -- and someone gave her one of these things. Apparently, at one point it, was on but not connected to her home network and whenever she called to her daughter, the device would respond and complain about not having a network connection. Don't know the current status of things, but that sounds funny *and* annoying -- can't imagine how much more after it's fully configured though. Can you change the cue now?
I can see these devices being a hassle for people named Alexa, Siri, etc ...
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Now I really wish I hadn't named my daughter "Hey Google".
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You've always been able to change the English prompt to "computer" as far back as I can remember.
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Can you change the cue now?
Let's find out...
"Alexa, change wake work to Wiretap"
"Sorry, I can only change the wake work to 'Computer', 'Amazon', 'Echo', or 'Ziggy' "
Universal security hole (Score:2)
Easy voice access to every users network. All with the same login and no password or any other verification. You should be able to use whatever wake word you want. Some may take more training or guidance but Amazon just wanted to build a brand.
Why You Can't Rename (Score:2)
They should have always called it "Amazon", but they didn't want people being reminded that your friendly assistant was spying on you for the shopping company. They could also allow people to rename the computer to anything they want - there is no technical voice-recognition barrier to that. And people name their pets with all kinds of silly, or human names, and there's no downside to that. (The name "Cindy" doesn't impact people naming their children the same as my beagle. And "Spot" and "Fluffy" don't hav
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The reason you can't rename it is because Echo devices process their voice recognition in the cloud. The only exception are the wake words: "Alexa", "computer", and "echo" in English. These words have recognizers baked into the ROM and are always being listened for locally. When one is heard, the device starts streaming audio from the mic to a cloud service which parses the audio, creates an intent tree and interprets the most likely command.
Are we running out of names? (Score:2)
Huh? I don't get this piece. It seems to be written as if names were some sort of scarce resource we could run out of rather than arbitrary sounds limited only by our sense of what sounds normal.
When Amazon killed Alexa (or ISIS, Adolf Hitler etc.. ruined their names) we didn't become more impoverished as a species. People just had to look a little further down the list of popular names to pick one If anything they likely caused an increase in the diversity of names to the (very tiny) benefit of society
Baby.js (Score:2)
People could take their cue from Cookie Clicker.
And Nabokov ruined the name Lolita (Score:2)
I guess he beats Jeff Bezos in the sense of what one can accomplish owning nothing but a typewriter.
Everybody is worried about Alexa... (Score:2)
Bráulio (Score:2)
In Brazil, back in '96, there was this series of TV ads [youtube.com] promoting safe sex. It showed a guy dialoguing with his own penis. Trouble is, the penis was called by a real name, Bráulio. It was never a very common name, but its popularity collapsed since.
Par for the course (Score:2)
Eh, so what? Daimler changed the use of Mercedes. (Score:2)
Mercedes is a girls name. A nice one. No one uses it anymore, for obvious reasons.
I don't think Berta Benz or Emil Jellinek (the car dealer who named the car after his daughter) had that planned.
Karen! (Score:2)
Rename Alex to Karen. ;)
Calling someone (Score:2)
Can't have multiple entities in a household / within earshot responding to the same name... A name would be pretty useless then.
Good things dogs don't live that long, because way back I thought it was cool to call my Retriever by the name of that new-fangled website that ... well, fetched things on the interwebs. Not that I have or am considering purchasing some "smart" "speaker", don't see the point at the moment. I guess that makes me an anti-speaxxxer...
Here come the lawyers (Score:2)
Same thing happened to Hillary (Score:2)
Alexa isn't the only one.
Hillary was a middling-popular name for quite some time, until for some reason it plummeted.
https://www.thecut.com/2013/01... [thecut.com]
Natural Disaster (Score:2)
Yeah everybody is naming their kids Yahoo! now! (Score:2)
Isn't that short for Alexandra anyhow? (Score:2)
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Please enlighten us as to 'how names work'. When did these supposed rules go into effect?
From a list of popular names 120 years ago https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babyn... [ssa.gov]
8th most popular boys name 'Frank', 13th 'Harry', 14th 'Willie', 18th 'Fred', 24th 'Joe'
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The say the solution to pollution... (Score:2)
...is dilution!
So bring on variety in voice AI names I say ... beyond OK Google, Alexa, Siri, Computer, Cortana (you still around cortana)? Mycroft... uh... Clippy.
Also the name Jenny. And the number 8675309 (Score:2)
A word that means nothing (Score:2)
When I was a kid, I invented a word which was intended to be entirely without meaning, possibly influenced by the Alice in Wonderland story. It was doonermang. So now you know what I know, which is a small fraction of bugger all.
If I had a kid now (Score:2)
I'd name it Covid. Covida for a girl.
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I'm pretty sure "Alexa" is just short for "Alexandra", and certainly classier and more feminine than "Lexi" or "Alex". Seems pretty silly to give your kid the short form of a name instead of the whole name and just call them the short form, like people usually do.
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Why would I want to name a child after my parents or grandparents? Most families I know don't have any real traditions. Certainly I have not seen any that are worth keeping.
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