'I loved my name until a huge company ruined it - now work calls are hell'
No one likes to be made fun of because of their name.
We all know the importance of choosing a baby name that won't subject our little ones to cruel comments once they start school. But if you give your child a perfectly normal moniker that becomes synonymous with something else once they're already born, that's completely out of your control.
That's exactly what happened to one woman who used to "love" her own name, until 2014 when a huge company launched a tech device and gave it a fairly common girls' name. The device in question? Amazon Alexa. While the virtual assistant service helps millions of people around the world, it has made life more difficult for Alexa Nizam.
Alexa explained that she "never had a reason" to dislike her name growing up, and it wasn't until the first of Amazon's virtual assistants was launched almost a decade ago that she ever had a problem with it. But she soon began to resent the company for pinching her name, as it made her the butt of several jokes.
Speaking to Business Insider, she said: "Growing up, I loved having the name Alexa. Aside from a brief first-grade obsession with the name Rebecca, I've always been happy with it and never had a reason to feel otherwise."
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If you've ever used an Alexa device before, you'll know that you activate it by saying the name "Alexa" and then asking it a question or requesting it perform as task, such as "Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes," or "Alexa, what is the time?". And as the devices got more popular, Alexa Nizam found herself getting more and more comments made towards her.
She explained: "I worked at a department store in 2018, and at least once a day, a customer would make fun of my name. 'What's the weather today, Alexa?' 'What time is it, Alexa?' Some would even say things like, 'I bet you get those jokes all the time,' as if they weren't part of the onslaught themselves."
The woman even began to feel "dread" at the thought of meeting new people, as she didn't want to have to face the comments they would make about her name. Things got worse during lockdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as although she didn't have as much contact with people, Zoom calls were a nightmare. Whenever anyone said her name, it would set off someone's home device in the background.
Despite all the frustration over her name, Alexa said she is still "proud" of her moniker. However, she insisted she shuts people down whenever they try to ask her about the weather.
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