Sign Name

A unique sign in American Sign Language (or another signed language) used to uniquely identify an individual person or, in some proposals, an object or device, in place of fingerspelling their English name. Sign names are culturally significant in Deaf communities and are typically bestowed by a Deaf person rather than invented by a hearing learner; they often reflect a personal trait, role, or initial handshape. In accessibility research on sign-language interaction with personal assistant devices, giving the device a user-assigned sign name has been proposed as a natural analog to a spoken wake-word such as "Alexa" or "Ok Google," and was the most-preferred wake-up approach among DHH participants in one CHI study.