Grimes and Elon Musk welcome a baby boy. His name is, er, something else. [MORE UPDATES: Grimes made an error–and the state is stepping in.]
Grimes, the Montreal indie star, has had a thing going with Elon Musk for some time now, long enough to have a child together.
A baby boy was born this week, Grimes’ first and Musk’s sixth (he has five sons from a previous marriage to author Justine Wilson: a set of triplets and a set of twins. Wow.)
The happy couple chose to name their new son X Æ A-12 Musk.
Er, what?
Please allow Grimes to explain.
•X, the unknown variable ⚔️
— ꧁ ༒ Gℜiꪔ⃕es ༒꧂ 🍓🐉🎀 小仙女 (@Grimezsz) May 6, 2020
•Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)
•A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent 🤍
+
(A=Archangel, my favorite song)
(⚔️🐁 metal rat)
“Metal rat?”

Elon had to make this gentle correction…
•X, the unknown variable ⚔️
— ꧁ ༒ Gℜiꪔ⃕es ༒꧂ 🍓🐉🎀 小仙女 (@Grimezsz) May 6, 2020
•Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)
•A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent 🤍
+
(A=Archangel, my favorite song)
(⚔️🐁 metal rat)
…but that really didn’t help too much.
This kid isn’t going to have trouble with the other kids at school. Nope. And better teach him how to reproduce “Æ” on a keyboard, fast. (You pronounced that “ai,” as in “eh,” by the way.)
UPDATE 1: The State of California, where the child was born, takes a dim view of this sort of nomenclature shenanigans. It’s illegal for a name to include numbers or symbols. The Department of Health Vital Records Office in LA states that names can only use the 26 letters in the English alphabet.
UPDATE 2: Not that it matters in the long term (see UPDATE 1), but Elon says that the proper way to pronounce the kid’s name is “X Ash Archangel Twelve.”
In a year of dumb and ridiculous things, this might be the dumbest thing I’ve heard so far. I mean, celebrities are known for wacky names, but this isn’t even a name.