[edwardwatson]

I'm in the UK and have never met someone called Alexa. Is it really a common name? Perhaps it is in the US, but it's not like Amazon chose a popular human name e.g. Sarah, Ben, etc.

Of all things I am suspicious of why they would choose a female name for an assistant.

[asteroidbelt]

> Sarah, Ben

Alexa is easy to recognize by software with very low error rate unlike Sarah or Ben.

> Of all things I am suspicious of why they would choose a female name for an assistant.

For the same reason airport announcements are usually voiced by women. For the same reason satnav is voiced by women. For the same reason language learning tapes are voiced by women. People (both men and women) are more comfortable listening to women.

I suspect you suspect it is because of assistant being women stereotype, not it's not that, and no need to look for social injustice everywhere.

[tzs]

If they had picked a male name they would have received complaints that it is sending a message that if you need help you should ask a man.

They are going to lose on that front no matter which way they go, so likely the best approach is to pick which works best technically. I'd expect that would be a female voice due to less low frequency components, making it easier to get it to sound good on a small speaker.

[zweifuss]

Around here it is a not too rare nickname for Alexandra.

[walshemj]

Mine some times triggers on Alex and has gone off during a wfh call