Please review Amazon's requirements before selecting an invocation name for your skill.
An invocation name must meet the following requirements:
The skill invocation name must not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of an entity or person. For more details about intellectual property policies, see Policy Requirements.
- One-word invocation names are not allowed, unless:
- The invocation name is unique to your brand/intellectual property with proof of ownership established through legitimate documentation, or
- (German skills only) The invocation name is a compound of two or more words. In this case, the word must form an actual word in the skill's language to ensure that Alexa can recognize it.
For more details about intellectual property policies, see Policy Requirements.
Invocation names that include names of people or places (for example, "molly", "seattle") are not allowed, unless they contain other words (for example, "molly's horoscope," "seattle spotlight," "sam's market").
Two-word invocation names are not allowed if one of the words is a definite article ("the"), indefinite article ("a", "an") or preposition ("for", "to", "of," "about," "up," "by," "at," "off," "with"). For example, "a bicycle", "an espresso", "to amuse", "for fun".
- The invocation name must not contain any of the Alexa skill launch phrases and connecting words.
- Launch phrases include "run," "start," "play," "resume," "use," "launch," "ask," "open," "tell," "load," "begin," and "enable."
- Connecting words include "to," "from," "in," "using," "with," "about," "for," "that," "by," "if," "and," "whether." See Understand How Users Invoke Custom Skills to learn more about launch phrases and connecting words.
The invocation name must not contain the wake words "Alexa," "Amazon," "Echo," or the words "skill" or "app".
The invocation name must contain only lower-case alphabetic characters, spaces between words, and possessive apostrophes (for example, "sam's science trivia"). Other characters like numbers must be spelled out (for example, "twenty one"). The name must be easy to pronounce correctly and be phonetically distinct to avoid being misinterpreted as other similar sounding words.
Periods are also permissible in invocation names containing acronyms or abbreviations that are pronounced as a series of individual letters, as in “NPR”, where the letters should be all lowercase and separated by periods and spaces (for example, “n. p. r.”). However, if the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, as in “NASA”, then it should be all lowercase but not contain periods or spaces (for example, “nasa”).
The invocation name cannot spell out phonemes. For example, a skill titled "AWS Facts" would need "AWS" represented as "a. w. s. " and NOT "ay double u ess."
The invocation name must not create confusion with existing Alexa features. If your skill invocations overlap with common Alexa commands, users may get confused by Alexa's response and not enable your skill. For example, if your invocation name is too similar to the built-in "weather" command, Alexa may sometimes respond with your skill and sometimes respond with the built-in weather feature, providing an inconsistent user experience.
The invocation name must be written in each language you choose to support. For example, the German version of your skill must have an invocation name written in German. If your skill is published in a non-English marketplace, the invocation name may contain English words if these words are commonly used (for example, if proper nouns, like names and places, are used). In those cases, use the English spelling of those words. In cases where spelling differs between the local language and English, use the spelling of the local language (example: use "radioplayer" in a German skill–not "radio player").
- The invocation name should be distinctive to ensure users can enable your skill. Invocation names that are too generic may be rejected during the skill certification process, or result in lower discoverability.