Amazon
- Amazon's AI personal assistant, Alexa, was first introduced with the release of the Amazon Echo smart speaker in 2015.
- Since then, the popularity of the name Alexa has dramatically decreased in the United States, according to data provided by the U.S. government.
Fewer Americans-in fact, far fewer-are naming their babies Alexa since the first release of the Amazon Echo in 2015, according to Social Security data.
The government keeps track of the popularity of all baby names in the U.S., and their data shows that the girls' name Alexa peaked in popularity in 2015, right before the introduction of Amazon's now famous AI personal assistant, which is most commonly activated by the wake word, "Alexa."
For example, most commands go something like this: "Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes."
The name experienced a dramatic drop off immediately after the release of the device, as shown on this graph:
Andy Kiersz / Business Insider
The steep drop in popularity was first noticed by sociologist and University of Maryland professor Philip Cohen, who shared the trend in a blog post Friday, and a series of corresponding tweets.
Cohen summarized the surprising decline by saying, "You have to feel for people who named their daughters Alexa, and the Alexas themselves, before Amazon sullied their names. Did they not think of the consequences for these people?"
Additionally, Business Insider checked on the popularity of names similar to Alexa, that might also wake an Amazon device. None experienced quite the dramatic decrease, although most are also experiencing a decline in popularity:
Andy Kiersz / Business Insider