Amazon Alexa: Popular language assistant but unpopular first name?

Amazon Alexa
Popular language assistant but an unpopular first name?

Voice assistants like those from Amazon or Apple have apparently also had an influence on naming children in recent years.

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Voice assistant Alexa is now so widespread that it apparently has an impact on the naming of babies.

Amazon’s Alexa is currently one of the most popular and widely used voice assistants. However, this has apparently also led to the fact that the first name Alexa is now given significantly fewer babies than a few years ago.

After the assistant was published in the USA, the frequency with which the name was given to newborns increased sharply for a short time at the end of 2014. After that, however, the numbers fell significantly, as in a recent article by “The Atlantic” is to be read.

This is remarkable because the name has been about equally popular in the past, explains Laura Wattenberg, the founder the website “namerology.com”, in conversation with the magazine. This development reminds them of hurricanes. There is an increasing tendency for people to pick up a first name due to increased mention in the news. However, since the name is mentioned again and again in connection with a disaster, there is often a sharp drop in the naming in retrospect.

What does the language assistant have to do with it?

After more than 1,500 out of a million babies were baptized Alexa in the United States between 2014 and 2015, there were only around 1,000 in 2017, just under 800 in 2018 and around 350 in 2020. “The Atlantic” speculates that parents had apparently realized that their children could be teased or that the first name Alexa could be associated with submissiveness, among other things, as the voice assistant reacts to the commands of the users.

A similar development could also be seen in Great Britain and Canada. In addition, the name Alexa according to “Popular-vornamen.de” increasingly unpopular in Germany too. If the first name made it into the top 100 of the most popular girl names in 2002, it has been on a downward trend for a few years. In 2019, Alexa wasn’t even in the top 1,000.

Apple’s language assistant Siri could also have had an effect on name finding in recent years – even if the first name is less common in the USA. According to “The Atlantic”, 111 girls were given this name in 2010, in 2020 there were only ten. A Siri was born in Denmark last year.

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