[HN Gopher] Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?
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Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-02-19 21:32 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.statista.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.statista.com)
| eplanit wrote:
| Alexa now joins Adolph. Those would be perfect names for a fairy
| tale of evil twins, for sure.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| Alexa, Karen, Chad...Yours could be next.
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| It's certainly become an inconvenient name to utter around our
| house, due to the responses it elicits from our countertops. So
| my daughter came up with the idea of referring to the device as
| "Amelia" whenever we talk about her. It has worked brilliantly
| and I suggest that everyone adopt the same convention.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Or you could just throw away those listening devices.
| cadence- wrote:
| We use the name Lexi instead.
| justtocomment wrote:
| It's interesting how we twist our behaviour to accomodate the
| technology and not the other way around.
|
| What worked great for us was not buying the thing in the
| first place.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| Don't worry the wake word will be customizable soon enough;
| jmosbech wrote:
| Related: Being married to an actual Siri made it easy for us to
| rule out one of the home automation platforms. (I asked, but
| somehow she didn't feel like changing her name.)
| withaplomb wrote:
| Try being called Beavis in the 90s with MTVs show.
| kowlo wrote:
| Would have been interesting to see data-points from before
| 2015...
| adjkant wrote:
| https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi should do it
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Is there a way to get the raw percentages rather than the
| rank?
| smogcutter wrote:
| Especially once you get outside the top 10 or so, I expect
| the percentages quickly get very small and very close. Even
| 5% would make a name astoundingly common. Like, more than
| one in every classroom common.
| Gys wrote:
| 'The year when the name Alexa was most popular is 2015. In that
| year, the number of births is 6052, which represents 0.311
| percent of total female births in 2015.'
|
| From https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
| [deleted]
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Amazon has ruined the name Amazon.
|
| A word that used to command respect and awe now connotates
| shipping waste and overworked warehouse laborers.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| Not really. If I say "she is an Amazon!" you will think I'm
| saying she's a female warrior instead of a megacorporation.
| xwdv wrote:
| Nope, I think of those people wearing the little blue jackets
| that say Amazon on them packing up boxes or running around
| grocery stores fetching shopping items.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| It would be interesting to know what proportion of the
| population of which countries would think which.
| vmception wrote:
| Just a friendly reminder that baby names are adult names.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| And that children are people and not stylish accessories.
| azurezyq wrote:
| I think this sentence is kind of BS:
|
| > Having been the 32nd most popular name for girls born in 2015,
| Alexa's rank dropped to 139th in 2019, the lowest it's been since
| 1992.
|
| Thanks for the link provided by adjkant below, here's the ranks
| per year:
|
| 2019 139
|
| 2018 90
|
| 2017 65
|
| 2016 51
|
| 2015 32
|
| 2014 63
|
| 2013 60
|
| 2012 57
|
| 2011 55
|
| 2010 50
|
| 2009 43
|
| 2008 50
|
| 2007 40
|
| 2006 39
|
| 2005 66
|
| 2004 72
|
| 2003 67
|
| 2002 69
|
| 2001 78
|
| 2000 87
|
| I agree that ranks in 2018 and 2019 is low and on point. However
| 2015 is already an outlier. The sentence doesn't make much sense
| statistically. It's a bit like picking data points purposefully.
| ghaff wrote:
| Baby name wizard has Alexa peaking in the 1990s when combined
| with various other related names. [1] The specific Alexa
| variant peaked in 2015 but that's in the context of the related
| names as a whole declining precipitously, albeit not to pre-80s
| levels.
|
| I must admit that a reason for the popularity spike doesn't pop
| to mind but presumably there's some pop culture thing I'm not
| thinking of.
|
| [1]
| https://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=alexa&sw=both&...
| ldayley wrote:
| A friend of mine was a big Billy Joel fan and named his child
| after his song "Downeaster Alexa". This probably accounts for
| the some of the spike in the 80's as well.
| Tarsul wrote:
| well maybe there could've been an uptick but Amazon ruined it
| (or maybe even amazon was responsible for the uptick in
| 2015?). I know from Germany that short, phonetically nice
| sounding names are "in" and I'd guess it's similar in the US.
| Alexa does sound nice, actually. Probably why Amazon took it,
| even.
| ghaff wrote:
| I assume there are also distinctiveness considerations. I'm
| guessing the "ex" phoneme is natural to pronounce but not
| super-common in English. And 3 syllables is probably a good
| compromise between distinctiveness and being too long.
| mentos wrote:
| Funny coincidence I was just wondering this a few weeks ago when
| reading a Tinder bio of a girl named Alexa who had something to
| the effect of 'heard all the Alexa jokes for a lifetime thanks'
|
| Made me wonder if there is a class action lawsuit where all of
| the Alexa's could sue Amazon for psychological distress or
| something.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| In the German speaking world the name Kevin is ruined, with
| some men having that name being avoided in the dating scene.
| rblatz wrote:
| Why is Kevin ruined? Is that what Alexa is called in German?
| 1986 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevinism
| afavour wrote:
| I know an Alexa and she says the same. I'll admit I hadn't
| thought about it before but it does sound like an incredibly
| annoying thing to have dropped on you from on high: constant
| jokes, if anyone addresses you in an Amazon-enabled home all
| kind of crap gets triggered... I can see why people are
| infuriated by it.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| I was in a call with an Alexa on Zoom and every time anyone
| mentions her name, my Echo would be triggered. I had to go
| mute Echo for the entire duration.
| echelon wrote:
| It's like "Karen", but in this case the blame for misuse lies
| on a single company rather than a meme.
|
| We shouldn't abuse people's names by using them for products,
| gross generalizations, etc. It's poor taste, and it
| frequently hurts people unintentionally.
|
| Imagine your own name being used as a term for ridicule or
| poking fun. It's not a good feeling.
| koolba wrote:
| > We shouldn't abuse people's names by using them for
| products, gross generalizations, etc. It's poor taste, and
| it frequently hurts people unintentionally.
|
| In the case of Alexa and Cortana, the intention is to treat
| the machine as a person you can talk to. It's intentional
| that it has a human name.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Chad and Dick too
| williw wrote:
| Thoughts go to all the Pete out there
| notriddle wrote:
| I wonder if OJ ever got asked about his cousin Homer?
| adam12 wrote:
| Yes, and the internet has ruined the name Karen, too.
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(page generated 2021-02-19 23:00 UTC)