Elon Musk and Grimes have renamed the baby formerly known as X Æ A-12 to something even harder to pronounce
Grimes and Elon Musk welcomed baby X Æ A-Xii on May 5. (Twitter/Getty)
Elon Musk and Grimes have changed their baby’s name from X Æ A-12 to something even trickier to say.
The singer gave birth to the baby formerly known as X Æ A-12 Musk in early May, with the announcement prompting a spate of memes, endless discussion and a whole lot of confusion.
As the world’s collective tongue twisted around Grimes and Elon Musk’s baby’s name, reports emerged that Californian law doesn’t allow for numbers or symbols in legal names, leading to suggestions that they would be forced to rename their offspring.
Grimes appeared to confirm that this was indeed the case on Instagram Monday (May 25), where she shared an update to her baby’s name. They will now go by X Æ A-Xii Musk.
“Roman numerals. Looks better tbh,” she explained.
According to David Glass, a family law attorney, “in California, you can only use the ’26 characters’ of the English language in your baby name”.
“Thus, you can’t have numbers, Roman numerals, accents, umlauts or other symbols or emojis,” he told People, suggesting the Æ character would also fall foul of these regulations.
Grimes also confirmed that “one dash is allowed”.
Elon Musk explains how to pronounce baby’s name.
Recently Elon Musk gave the world a quick explainer on the pronunciation of his and Grimes’ baby’s name.
“I mean it’s just X, the letter X,” he told the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
“And then, the Æ is, like, pronounced ‘Ash’… and then, A-12, A-12 is my contribution.”
Grimes and Musk have previously explained the inspiration behind their choice. The singer chose the first half of the name.
“X, the unknown variable,” she tweeted.
“Æ, my elven spelling of AI (love and/or artificial intelligence).”
A-12, or rather, A-Xii, was chosen by Musk and is a reference to the couple’s favourite aircraft, the CIA’s Lockheed A-12, codenamed Archangel.
“No weapons, no defences, just speed,” Grimes wrote. “Great in battle, but non-violent.”
Grimes said baby X Æ A-Xii will be allowed to determine their own gender.
Before giving birth, Grimes said that her child with Elon Musk will be allowed to “decide their fate and destiny” in terms of their gender.
She explained: “I don’t want to say the gender of the baby … because I feel like their privacy should be protected.
“I don’t think they can consent to being famous or being in public. And I don’t want to gender them in case that’s not how they feel in their life.
“I don’t know, I just feel like it doesn’t need to be known.”
