A woman who shares her name with the tech devices 'Alexa' and 'Siri' says she constantly sets off Amazon Echo's during online meetings when clients say her name.
Alexa Seary, 27, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, whose surname is pronounced as 'Siri', says her Amazon Echo and Apple products constantly go off during online meetings when her name is announced.
She has been the butt of many jokes since Apple introduced its personal assistant function, Siri, in 2011.
But Alexa was shocked when Amazon released its own assistant device, the Amazon Echo in 2014, also named Alexa.
Working in a restaurant in her early 20s, Alexa was constantly faced with customers laughing at her name and giving her commands like a machine.
Now working in pharmaceutical marketing, Alexa says the jokes have died down and she now thinks her name is “cool”.
"I like my name - it’s like a trademark", she said.
“But I’m constantly setting off people’s Alexa’s in their homes when they say my name in meetings. I feel terrible when it’s a client call and they are all embarrassed.
Alexia says she always thought sharing a name with Siri was cool, but became annoyed when Amazon's human-like bot also joined the picture.
She added: “I thought sharing my surname with Siri was cool as a kid.
"When Alexa came out it went a little crazy and got a little annoying.
“Now I use it as an icebreaker. The odds of sharing my name with Alexa and Siri are pretty crazy.”
Alexa says people are always quick to realise the connection with her first name but don’t always pick up the ‘Siri’ link until she says her name out loud.
“People don’t twig the Siri link at first,” she said.
“As a server in the restaurant, I’d get tables messing with me. I go over to introduce myself and they’d laugh and say – ‘I have one of those.’
“When they’d ask for things they would say, ‘Alexa, get me this.' I still get that joke.”
Alexa now uses her name as an icebreaker and sees it as a positive thing rather than annoying.
She said: “It’s quite fitting now I work in social media marketing. It’s like my stage name. I think it’s cool and unique.
“It gets out on email all the time. People always ask me if my parents knew when they named me but they can’t tell the future.
“I think I’ll keep the name Seary in my surname when I get married.”
