We recommendation is:
How to Get Alexa to Say Your Name in Few Simple Steps
By default, we call our family-friendly voice Assistant, Alexa, and get what we want from her by saying, “Alexa, [do this].” Also, when we send messages or emails using Alexa, it calls us by our profile name (by default). It does the same when sending messages to Echo users, as well as sending voice messages.
Someone might not like this default behavior of Alexa. For example, if you want to make Alexa say your name, but it doesn’t pronounce it correctly, it can be annoying to you. This is actually a common and very known issue of Alexa. If you visit the official Amazon community, you can see people have reported this problem from time to time.
Another example is if you have someone in your home whose name is “Alexa,” and the Echo speaker is placed where many conversations happen, it will probably miss interpret the name “Alexa” as the wake word. The same could happen if there is a speaker nearby.
Since these two things (How Alexa calls you and its wake word) often go together when someone wants to change how Alexa interacts, we thought to write how to change both in this guide.
So if you are looking for a way to get Alexa to say your name (correctly) or change the default “Alexa” wake word, this guide is for you!
Table of Contents
How to get Alexa to say your name?
If you have installed the Alexa app on your smartphone (Android/iOS), and have set up your Echo device, then there are only a few steps you need to follow to change how Alexa calls you.
But before going to change this, you need to know a few things.
It is fine if you are doing this if Alexa calls you the wrong name. But if you are going to get Alexa to say a fancy name, like “moon knight,” then you should know that Alexa will use the same name when it sends messages to other Echo devices in your home.
Plus, Alexa will display that name on your public profile too. So you have to be careful when changing the name Alexa calls you.
However, since you can always change the name as many times as you want, it is fine, and we are not going to stop you.
So here is how you can get Alexa to say your name.
- Open the Alexa app
- On the bottom menu, tap on “Communicate”
- Then, tap on the profile icon at the top right corner (an icon of a human)
- Now tap on “My communication settings” right below your account name
- On that window, tap on “Edit” (at the top right corner)
- Then you can change the first and last names. Once you have edited the name, tap on “Save”
- Now ask Alexa, “Alexa, say my name” or “Alexa, what’s my name?”
Once you ask that, Alexa should reply to you with the name you have given in step 6.
But what if it pronounces your name incorrectly? Then you have to take an extra step and change the pronunciation of your name.
So here is how you change the way Alexa pronounces your name;
- Open the Alexa app again
- Tap on More (the hamburger menu icon)
- Select Settings
- Tap on “Your profile and family”
- Select your profile that needs the pronunciation change
- Tap on “Edit name and pronunciation”
- Tap on “Go to saved pronunciation” button (at the bottom)
- Now tap on the play button to hear how Alexa pronounces your name
- Then you will see the option “Lets’ sort that.” Tap on it
- You will see a few alternative pronunciations that Alexa made. Listen to those options, and if there is one correct pronunciation, select it and tap on “That’s better,” or you can select “Write it out” and type your name with hyphens and help Alexa to understand how your name should be pronounced. Once done, save your preference
And that should solve if Alexa says your name incorrectly. Don’t forget to test your name by asking Alexa to say your name.
But there is one more customization left. Let’s see how you can change the default “Wake” word of Alexa.
How to change the wake word of Alexa
It is much simpler and easy to change the default wake word of Alexa rather than change how it calls you by your name.
However, this customization is very limited, and you have only a few options to select from. The reason we see why Amazon did this is to avoid misinterpretations of Alexa. That said, let’s see what you need to do to change the wake word of your Alexa.
If you have multiple Echo devices in your home, you will have to repeat this process for each and every one of them (unless you only want to change the default wake word of only one Echo device).
There are two ways you can do this, and we will show you both ways.
Method 01: Using the Alexa app
If you are going to use this method to change the wake word, make sure the Echo device you are going to assign the new wake word is already set up on the Alexa app.
Here is what you need to do;
- Open the Alexa app
- Tap on “Devices” on the bottom menu
- Tap on “All devices” from the top icons
- Select the device you want to change the wake word
- Tap on “Wake word”
- Now select a new wake word from the given options. The options you might get will be “Computer”, “Amazon”, and “Echo”
- Once you have made the selection, the Alexa app will automatically save your preference
Method 02: Using verbal commands
Here is how you can do the same using verbal commands. Here you need to call your desired Echo device to do that.
- Ask the Echo device, “Alexa, I want to change your wake word” or “Alexa, change the wake word for this device”
- Then Alexa will respond according to what you say. A typical response would be, “I can help you change the wake word for this device. Should we do that now?”. And then you can respond with a “Yes”
- Then she will ask you to choose a new wake word from a list (as we mentioned earlier, this would be “Computer”, “Amazon”, and “Echo”). You can select a wake word and respond (like “Amazon”)
- Then Alexa will proceed with a new name, and she will also respond by saying the new wake word again.
That’s it. Now you have successfully changed the default wake word of your Alexa.
Conclusion
This guide explained to you how you could get Alexa to say your name and fix if there is a pronunciation issue with your name. Also, how to change the default wake word of Alexa.
If you found this guide useful, you can share this with your friends and someone who wants to change those two things in their Alexa.
Have a nice day!
