Just four days old, Elon Musk’s newborn is already the source of online chatter. The SpaceX CEO sparked an online frenzy after announcing that his son’s name is X Æ A-12 Musk. Besides memes and jokes, people are also trying to decode how to pronounce the name. If you are among them, then you now have an answer.
During a recent podcast interview with comedian Joe Rogan, Musk explained the meaning behind the name and also how to pronounce it.
During the interview, among other things, Rogan asked Musk the obvious question “How do you say the name?” “Is it a placeholder?” (a temporary name). To which the tech giant clarified that it’s not. Musk described that the name is pronounced as it looks, ‘X Ash A Twelve’ and then explained its meaning, character by character.
He said that it’s his partner and mother of the child, singer Grimes who came up with the name. In fact, earlier she took to Twitter to reveal the same.
As the interview continued, Musk explained that the first letter is “X”, pronounced as the alphabet. Then it’s “Æ”, a character used in some languages, including Danish and Norwegian. As for the pronunciation of this character it’s either Ash or AE. Musk then decoded “A-12”, he said that it’s his contribution to the name and stands for Archangel 12, the name of one of his planes. As for the pronunciation, “A-12” is said just the way it reads.
So, taking that cue the name comes to “X-Ash-A-Twelve,” just as Musk mentioned in the podcast’s beginning.
{{/usCountry}}So, taking that cue the name comes to “X-Ash-A-Twelve,” just as Musk mentioned in the podcast’s beginning.
{{/usCountry}}In case you want to hear Musk’s explanation, here’s a video of the podcast. Skip to 37 seconds to hear it all.
Cool or confusing, whatever the name may sound like, Musk won’t be able to name his X Æ A-12 officially, reports People magazine. Though not technically illegal, it won’t be a valid name, Musk’s family lawyer David Glass revealed.
“In California, you can only use the ‘26 characters’ of the English language in your baby name,” he told People. “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,” Glass added.
“I don’t think you can say it’s illegal — it just won’t be accepted. So your child won’t have an official name and won’t have a birth certificate and you can’t get a social security number until you have a birth certificate and on down the line,” he further explained.
This is Musk’s first child with girlfriend Grimes. He also has five sons from his previous marriage.