Alexa - baby name or Amazon device?

[Alexa2011]

Hi mums, I have a daughter called Alexa (age 9) and have been saddened but not surprised that the name has significantly dropped in popularity since 2017. I’m sure as parents (and soon to be parents) you all spend hours and hours debilitating over your precious baby’s name that will be their identity throughout their life. I’m reaching out to all parents to ask you help support the group Alexa is a Human by signing for the change.org petition. Or getting in touch if Amazon’s use of Alexa is affecting you directly. Many thanks

I’m not sure that the petition will do anything really. I read it and I think the points raised (such as the fact that people use Alexa so widely as a joke, even outside of speaking to their Amazon devices) highlights why they won’t want to change. Having that level of brand awareness by far outweighs 5000 people signing a petition.

It sucks when it’s your name or a family member's name that gets used like this, and I feel sorry for Alexas. Bullying isn’t acceptable and that should be dealt with approving schools. But any name can have connotations associated either by corporations or social media that take off and there’s not really much that anyone can do about it. Karen for example over the last few years has gone from being a normal name to being cultural shorthand for an entitled possibly racist middle aged woman. There was an AIBU post recently about a woman named Karen who changed her name over it. And sadly I think the only options are either living with it or changing it.

The same thing happened to the name Siri. It is very popular in Scandinavia. I hate that female names are used in products, this hardly ever happens to men's names!

Isis is another lovely girls name which is now not in use. For what it’s worth I think Alexa is beautiful name. I do wish companies would think before they use fairly popular names for their products.

Just to clarify, not suggesting Isis is a company in my last post.