No one wants to name their girl Alexa anymore because Amazon Alexa
Popularity of the name "Alexa" has declined by 33 per cent from 2015 to 2017
"Alexa, which is your favourite colour?"-- imagine you are talking about colours to your two-year old daughter named Alexa and the smart speaker kept in the corner of your room buzzes to life and responds, "I don't have an answer to that question". It's a bit odd situation to be in. But you don't have to worry about that happening to you anytime soon as Alexa is losing its popularity among the masses.
According to a research by University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, the popularity of the name "Alexa" has declined ever since Amazon debuted its first smart speaker Amazon Echo in 2015. In 2015, 6,050 baby girls in the United States were named Alexa. However, since then, the popularity of the name has declined by 33 per cent. In 2017, just 3,883 baby girls in the US were named Alexa which is 0.207 per cent of the total female births in 2017, as per the data provided by the US Social Security website.
In fact, statistics show that popularity of naming a newborn Alexa declined from 311 for every 1,00,000 females born in 2015 to 207 for every 1,00,000 baby girls born in 2017.
Incidentally, Siri isn't popular either. As per a Recode report, the trend of naming a newborn baby girl Siri did increase prior to the launch of the personal digital assistant in 2011, however, the name hasn't been popular among American parents ever since. The popularity of the name has declined from 120 baby girls in the US being named Siri in 2011, which is about 6 in every 1,00,000 girls, to 20 newborn females in 2017, which is about 1 in every 1,00,000 girls.
While Alexa's popularity might be dwindling, it was ranked 65th most popular name for baby girls in the US in 2017. On the other hand, Siri does not feature on the US Social Security Administration's top 1000 names list at all.
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Amazon launched Alexa-enabled Amazon Echo in 2015, followed by Echo Dot, Echo Show, and Echo Plus. With the growing popularity of Echo devices which feature Amazon's personal digital assistant, it seems that the American parents are increasingly moving away from naming their kids Alexa in order to avoid activating their smart home devices while talking to their children.