By Carlos Winston | February 8, 2020

A Massachusetts mother has grown frustrated with the way her six-year-old daughter has been treated by her school mates and all because she shares the same name as Amazon’s popular virtual assistant, Alexa.

Her daughter has endured constant bullying and is not the only person to share this experience.

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Lauren (her anonymous name) was made aware of the problem after she witnessed her daughter being spoken to as a servant in and outside of school. That’s when she reached out to Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos.

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It doesn’t stop at school. It seems this issue is following the mother and daughter everywhere they go. The six-year-old girl is always asked if she can do things just as well as the virtual assistant can.

A distraught mom has sent a letter to Amazon pleading with the company to help stop the bullying she says her 6-year-old daughter has experienced from sharing the same name with its virtual assistant device Alexa.

“Mr. Bezos, I write to you as a father and human being rather than the CEO of Amazon,” she said. “We are not asking for wealth or recognition from this request. We just want to correct an error we believe was a giant mistake.”

The Lynn, Massachusetts, woman, who wanted to be known by her first name Lauren to protect her child’s identity, wrote to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos last week after saying she witnessed her 6-year-old daughter being bullied at school and in public, with kids ordering her daughter to complete tasks and laughing at her.

“Kids are telling her, ‘Turn on my T.V., tell me today’s weather…,” Lauren wrote in the letter. “They laugh at her and treat her like a servant, and this has been an ongoing issue, everywhere we go.”

The letter went on to describe that everywhere the family goes, people acknowledge the name her daughter shares with the Amazon device, and often makes jokes asking if her daughter “Can do the same things the Alexa device does?” The letter was originally sent three weeks ago, but Lauren sent it again early last week, and told NBC 4 she got an apology from a member of technical support on behalf of the CEO. [NBC New York]

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The letter that brought awareness to Lauren and Alexa’s experience was the second attempt to get in contact with Amazon’s CEO. One other letter had been sent a few weeks prior; thankfully they were able to get a response from an Amazon rep named Patricia.

“I’m very sorry to hear about the experience you’re having. I definitely understand this has been frustrating,” Patricia wrote. “I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to voice your concern and let us know about the issues you’ve run into. I have sent your feedback on to our internal teams. Thanks for making sure we’re aware of your experience.” [NBC New York]

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I think people have always wondered what it would be like to share a name or looks with someone who was ridiculously famous, but in this case, it’s different. I think that the problem here is rooted in the fact that Amazons Alexa isn’t a person. So some people who share that name end up getting treated less like one. This is a cruddy situation for anybody going through an experience similar to Lauren’s daughter.

In general, a better move for companies who are rolling out virtual assistants would be to give them names less synonymous with names that people have. While Alexa isn’t the most popular name, it’s still used pretty commonly. I wonder if people with the name Siri have gone through the same thing.

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