Elon forced to dot ii on son’s name
Tech genius had to change infant’s already strange name from X AE A-12 to X AE A-xii to comply with law
MUSICIAN Grimes and her billionaire love Elon Musk have had to change their baby’s name in order to comply with California law.
Their newborn son was initially called X AE A-12 (pronounced “Ex Ash A Twelve”) but California law prohibits Indo-arabic numerals in names.
The 32-year-old singer revealed in her Instagram comments that the baby’s name was written X AE A-xii, substituting in the Roman numerals signifying “12”.
The reveal came after an Instagram commenter asked: “Did you change the baby’s name because of Californian laws? What is the baby’s new name?”
Grimes replied: “X AE A-xii.”
This prompted another Instagram user to write: “Nice! Just removed the numbers to conform to California law.”
“Roman numerals. Looks better tbh,” wrote Grimes, to which the commentator who asked the initial questions wrote: “You aren’t allowed to have numbers in your name, so she replaced the numbers with Roman numerals.”
Grimes, a Canadian singer whose Christian name is Claire Elise Boucher, wrote: “One dash is allowed.”
According to the California handbook, names must be written on birth certificates “using the 26 alphabetical letters of the English language”, but apostrophes and dashes can also be included.
Earlier this month Grimes shared two more brief videos of their son, on Instagram.
The first clip gives an up-close look at the first-time mother’s heavily tattooed hand cradling her son, who’s wrapped up in a softblue blanket.
The baby was lying on his side during what appeared to be a nap session.
The blanket, which covered his tiny body, came up to about the middle of his right ear.
At one point, Grimes gently and lovingly touched the back of his head with her pointer finger, with her hand tattoo “Beautiful” in full view.
About an hour later, the Genesis singer shared the second quick clip. It showed a facial view of herself while snuggling up with her boy.
In that one, she appeared to be lying back on a couch or bed as she stared straight into the camera with her lips pressed near the top of his head.
For added effect, Grimes used a popular filter app that gave the illusion of pink butterflies hovering over her dyed-blonde tresses that were styled long and flowing, with some soft waves.
Just after the birth, Grimes broke down her son’s name, symbol by symbol, explaining that the X stood for “the unknown variable”, while AE refers to the “elven spelling of Ai” meaning “love &/or Artificial intelligence”.
The A-12 stands for the “precursor to SR-17”, which is the couple’s favourite aircraft because it has “no weapons, no defences, just speed”, adding: “Great in battle but non-violent.”
In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Musk elaborated more on the origin of the unique name.
“First of all, my partner is the one who actually came up with the name,” the Spacex founder said.
“I mean it’s just X, the letter X. And then the AE is, like, pronounced ‘Ash’... Yeah... And then A-12 is my contribution…”
The child is Grimes’s first, but Musk’s seventh. He shares six children, Nevada, Damien, Saxon, Griffin, Xavier and Kai, with his first wife, Justine, who he was married to from 2000 to 2008.
Musk, 48, and Grimes went public with their relationship in May 2018.