[alexjplant]

The short version of my name is one letter away from "Alexa". You can imagine how many comments and jokes about Amazon's AI assistant I've been party to for the past decade. Although it may be hard for you to believe I actually don't really care, much as you probably don't care about the hot dogs bearing your name that you see when you walk down the cold aisle in the grocery store. Should they instead call the anthropomorphized AI assistant something like "W'rkncacnter" to preclude the possibility of name collisions (chaotic entities imprisoned in alien stars notwithstanding)?

[psygn89]

My Japanese mom always thought it was weird to put peoples names to destructive forces like hurricanes. I think she said in Japan use some numbering system (might be as simple as incrementing, I don't remember).

[daveguy]

The US did this for a long time -- only numbering storms. In 1953 they switched to a list of names, female only. Then 25 years later to male and female names. It is kinda weird, and if they're destructive enough the name is retired. I think the idea is that people would pay more attention to human names in the warning process as the hurricanes approach land.

[BrawnyBadger53]

I could definitely see the support response to a major storm being better when it's easier to communicate and identify a specific storm.

[laptopdev]

When I was 7, my family's Japanese foreign exchange student was being introduced to me. She bursted out laughing saying my nick name Dev Dev sounded like "fart fart" or "fat fart".

Had the nickname fart fart until my sister moved out of the house.

Maybe you could confirm, but ChatGPT tells me in Japanese Debu colloquially and offensively means "fat" or "chubby", and Bu is an onomotapoeia for a fart noise, like "prrt" in English.

[ben_w]

> "W'rkncacnter" to preclude the possibility of name collisions (chaotic entities imprisoned in alien stars notwithstanding)?

Bold move, but imagine the patch notes:

• Fixed bug where assistant attempted to unmake the fabric of reality

• Resolved issue where “Set alarm for 7 AM” triggered a rampancy cascade

• Improved pronunciation of “Lh’owon” for calendar appointments

Probably still a better bet than Durandal, definitely an improvement over Tycho.

And then there was Leela…

[binarynate]

It appears your name is Alex, so I'm not surprised that the Alexa product name doesn't bother you. I suspect you would feel different if your name was Alexa. If the product was named Nate, it would bother me. There are plethora of other options for product names that companies can use besides common first names.

[nprateem]

But I bet you're never late for your train