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Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

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Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#81

Post by StillBored »

toyg wrote: post #54
echelon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Imagine your own name being used as a term for ridicule or poking fun. You mean like "a John"? Or "Dick"? Or "a big Charlie"? These things are old as sin, stuff like this will probably exist forever. Forbid it as much as you want, it will always come back one way or another. Or is the problem that now they "trend female", whereas they historically trended male? I have a pretty simple name, but because it was used i…

The odd thing, is that every single Dick I've known, real name was actually Richard. People are weird.

My bother in law has one of those names which is is a "joke" and it doesn't seem to bother him in the least. My Sister OTOH, I don't think I actually knew his full name until I was attending their wedding.

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#82

Post by thrtythreeforty »

MarkLowenstein wrote: post #17

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.

AWS employee here.

We purposely say "ALex-uh" in group calls instead of "uhLEXa", because we talk about the service and devices all the time and using the correct pronunciation would trigger 10-15 Alexas sitting on everyone's desks!

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#83

Post by whimsicalism »

rootusrootus wrote: post #46
whoisjuan wrote: post #35

Alexa, Karen, Chad...Yours could be next.

Perhaps the upside of having a biblical name that is shared by 10 million other Americans is that it probably isn't too easy to twist it into an insult. Edit: that may be an overestimate. Still one of the most popular names in the US, but a more official source (SS) suggests there are no single names which are shared by more than about 5M people.

> a more official source (SS) suggests there are no single names which are shared by more than about 5M people.

You're telling me there are fewer than 5 million Michaels or Johns? I would have thought more.

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#84

Post by dspillett »

d1zzy wrote: post #58
reaperducer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am acquaintances with a Siri. She's seems like a nice person, but since she works in a service industry I bet she's tired of hearing "Hey, Siri" all the time. If I was her, I'd ask for permission to not wear a name tag.

So, after all, Google deciding to use "OK, google" as introductory phrase was the better choice?

Allowing Alexa devices to respond to the more generic "computer" is a not-insignificant win for Amazon IMO.

Though it can get a little confused when I'm watching Star Trek variants on a nearby TV...

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#85

Post by jjcon »

d1zzy wrote: post #58
reaperducer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am acquaintances with a Siri. She's seems like a nice person, but since she works in a service industry I bet she's tired of hearing "Hey, Siri" all the time. If I was her, I'd ask for permission to not wear a name tag.

So, after all, Google deciding to use "OK, google" as introductory phrase was the better choice?

I ditched my google homes almost entirely because of ok google feeling to hail corporate - I much prefer echo or computer on the Amazon platform. I think the key is just allowing some customization.

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#86

Post by shagie »

dspillett wrote: post #84
d1zzy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, after all, Google deciding to use "OK, google" as introductory phrase was the better choice?

Allowing Alexa devices to respond to the more generic "computer" is a not-insignificant win for Amazon IMO. Though it can get a little confused when I'm watching Star Trek variants on a nearby TV...

Try setting it to "amazon" and then watch a video about AWS or something similar.

"Echo" is the 'safest' one for me.

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#88

Post by shagie »

ghaff wrote: post #14
azurezyq wrote: post #7

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 tha…

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.babynamewi…

The babynamewizard scrapes the Social Security website (I believe - I don't know any other resource for this data)... which, unfortunately, doesn't have a linkable interface (everything is a POST request).

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/

Toss "Alexa" in the "Popularity of a Name" field and select 1900 & later.

Wolfram does a nice job of it too - https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=alexa

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#89

Post by sib »

azurezyq wrote: post #7

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 tha…

Given that Alexa was launched publicly in 2014, perhaps it was responsible for the initial increase in popularity in 2015 by raising awareness of the name?

Having been on the inside of the project and directly involved in picking the name / wake word (which happened earlier than 2014), there were multiple considerations involved.

Particularly important was the functional requirement that the wake word chosen be able to support both high recognition rates and low false positives. We also did not want to have a "helper word" such as "hey" or "ok," as that would have required enforcing an unnatural speech pattern.

Re: Has Amazon Ruined the Name Alexa?

#90

Post by toast0 »

ben509 wrote: post #44
jmosbech wrote: post #36

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.)

> I asked, but somehow she didn’t feel like changing her name. That's nuts. It's just a bit of paperwork!

It's a bit of paperwork, and telling everyone. And telling them again when they forget. And deciding if it's really worth updating your loyalty card that didn't need any documentation to set your name, but needs a notarized copy of an official certificate to change it.
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