Babies named Alexa

Amazon revenue going up. American babies named Alexa going down. The negative correlation is, in this case, almost causal. Amazon's voice assistant ate the name like the company ate every other category.

Amazon's annual revenue grew from about 34 billion dollars in 2010 to over 575 billion by 2023 as the company expanded from books to everything. The Alexa baby name fell sharply after Amazon's Echo (2014) made the word a default smart-speaker prompt; parents quietly stopped choosing the name. The negative correlation is partly causal: Amazon's product success directly retired a baby name. Two parts of the same company's market dominance.

Sometimes correlation is one company quietly retiring a name. The Echo replaced what the registrar used to write.