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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and singer Grimes revealed over the weekend that they changed their baby’s name (slightly) to comply with California law.
What’s the news:
- Musk and Grimes revealed through comments on Instagram that she and her husband change their baby’s name from “X Æ A-12” to “X Æ A-Xii,” according to USA Today.
- Why the fix? Grimes said it “looks better” and “one dash allowed.”
- Grimes and Musk announced the baby’s name back in early May.
Some context:
- California state rules call for names to only use the 26 alphabetical characters of the English language. But this name includes “Æ,” which is the elven character for love and/or artificial intelligence. It also includes the number 12, as I reported for the Deseret News.
- Family law attorney David Glass told People magazine that the couple would face issues with the name in the state of California.
- “In California, you can only use the ‘26 characters’ of the English language in your baby name,” he said. “Thus, you can’t have numbers, Roman numerals, accents, umlauts or other symbols or emojis. Although an apostrophe, for a name like ‘O’Connor,’ is acceptable.”
- The couple explained that the meaning of the name through social media, as I reported for the Deseret News. Here’s how I explained it before:
X stands for “the unknown variable.”
Æ is the elven spelling of AI (love and/or artificial intelligence).
A-12 is the precursor to SR-17 (the couple’s favorite aircraft, which doesn’t have any weapons or defenses, focusing on speed).
A also stands for “Archangel,” which is Grime’s favorite song.