Name-dropping: The number of babies named Alexa is dropping quickly

11/20/22 7:00PM

Last week Amazon commenced its layoffs, with 10,000 employees set to lose their jobs — the largest cuts in the company’s history.

‍Name-dropping

‍The cuts hit the Alexa voice assistant division especially hard. One employee in Alexa’s AI division reported that 60% of her team were being cut, with a 15-minute videoconference informing them of their unemployment.

Amazon are not the only ones scaling back on Alexa — parents are too. Last year only 698 baby girls were named Alexa in the US, the lowest figure since 1986. The name exploded in popularity in the 90s and early 2000s, but lost steam during the last decade, particularly after Amazon released its voice assistant in 2014-15.

‍Alexa, what should I call my startup?

‍Though Amazon Echo is technically the actual device, the naming of Alexa is interesting. Asking a device to play music, set a timer or call mom becomes much more natural when the device is anthropomorphized with a human name — and it’s not only Amazon that uses this technique. Goldman Sachs' consumer arm is named Marcus, there's mattress companies Emma &Casper, an AI copywriting tool called Jasper, an insurance startup named Oscar, Mona is a personal shopping assistant and Billie is a buy-now-pay-later company for the B2B market.

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The UAE’s OPEC exit will hit the group in the barrels

After just shy of 60 years in OPEC, its membership even predating its status as a nation-state, the United Arab Emirates yesterday announced its shocking departure from the oil production group, effective May 1, as the knock-on effects of the Iran war continue to play out across the Middle East and the energy landscape.

For context, the UAE produces the third-highest amount of oil in the group, per April data and OPEC’s latest set of annual statistics.

According to the cartel’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin, the OPEC group was collectively exporting some 19 million barrels of crude oil a day last year, with the United Arab Emirates accounting for some 14% of that daily output.

UAExit means UAExit

The nation, whose energy minister told Reuters yesterday that the decision was taken “after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production” and wasn’t made following discussions with any other country, made up a healthy share of the group’s total confirmed crude oil reserves, as well.

Of the 12 nations in the core group, which was founded by just five oil superpowers back in September 1960, only two (Iraq and Saudi Arabia) exported more barrels of crude oil daily, pumping out 3.36 million and 6.05 million barrels, respectively, each day to nations around the world.

For its part, the UAE said it will “continue its responsible role by gradually and thoughtfully increasing production, in line with demand and market conditions,” per the official state news agency. Clearly, the nation now wants a little more control of just how much oil it can pump around the world, with the UAE having to eat a large proportion of lost revenues due to its healthy abundance and OPEC restrictions.