Why do we give robots female names?

Is there any evidence at all that "so many robots designed to resemble women"?

Has there been any attempt at all to actually survey this and understand the numbers? Is it more than half? What about IBM's Watson? HAL 9000? T800, T1000? Commander Data?

Or is this just some off-the-cuff estimate by a lazy clickbaiting blogger, spun into yet another bald-faced attempt at generating controversy (and clicks) from nothing?

The problem with this article is that it ignores a TON of research.

We tend to trust women more then men:

The Role of Gender and Race in Cooperation and Trust: Experimental Examination of Identity Based Strategic Interaction

http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~rstarr/Econ191_2014_webpage/191%20F...

I wouldn't say this is exclusive to robots or new. Many machines, like cars, are referred to with a feminine persona: she's really humming (in reference to an engine), come on old girl. See also the many boats throughout history with female names.

That doesn't get me any closer to why, but I would say for robots, it would seem rooted in this tradition. They're just another kind of machine.