Alexa Giebink is Argus Leader Media’s food and entertainment reporter. (Photo: Jay Pickthorn/Argus Leader)
What’s it like to be named Alexa, now that Amazon Alexa is well, everywhere? In this article in the Argus Leader, writer Alexa Giebink says its “both a blessing and a curse”:
Thankfully for my parents, the device’s “wake word” can be changed to ‘Amazon’ or ‘Echo.’In the first month they had the speaker, there were several unsettling instances the Echo answered my parents when they called out my name.
Giebink looks into why Amazon chose the name Alexa, and reports on the name’s decline in popularity:
My name was never really that popular to begin with, but Amazon’s device has made it less so. In 2015, the year the Echo was released, 6,050 baby girls in the United States were named Alexa, or 311 for every 100,000 female babies born. Since then, the name has declined in popularity 33 percent, according to new data from the Social Security Administration. Last year, just 3,883 baby girls were named Alexa.