Grimes and Elon Musk change baby X Æ A-12’s name due to California law

26 May 2020, 17:01

Grimes shares home footage of Elon Musk with baby X Æ A-12

Sam  Prance

By Sam Prance

California baby name law states that people cannot legally have numbers in their names.

Grimes and Elon Musk broke the internet after naming their baby X Æ A-12 but it turns out that they're not legally allowed to.

Earlier this month (May 4), Grimes and Elon Musk confirmed that they had welcomed their first child into the world. Elon took to Twitter to tweet, "mom and baby all good", following the birth. He then shared a photo of their baby and revealed that he and Grimes had named their child X Æ A-12. People thought he was joking but Grimes later confirmed that it was true.

READ MORE: Grimes’ mum gets into feud with Elon Musk after he shares alt-right meme

However, California law states that numbers can't be used in birth certificates, so X Æ A-12's name has been changed.

What is X Æ A-12 called now?

Grimes and Elon Musk forced to legally change baby's name from X Æ A-12
Grimes and Elon Musk forced to legally change baby's name from X Æ A-12. Picture: Kevin Tachman/Getty Images for Vogue, @elonmusk via Twitter

Yesterday (May 26), a fan asked Grimes about X Æ A-12's name. Underneath Grimes' latest Instagram post, they wrote: "Did you change the baby name because of Californian laws? What is the baby’s new name?" Grimes then responded that X Æ A-12 is now called: "X Æ A-Xii". She added: "Roman numerals. Looks better tbh" and "one dash is allowed".

In other words, even though it's now spelt differently, X Æ A-Xii still has the same name. Grimes and Elon have just replaced the numbers with roman numerals. Grimes previously explained that the X stands for the unknown variable, Æ stands for artificial intelligence and A-Xii is a reference to Grimes' favourite song and Elon's favourite aircraft.

Naturally, the internet is reacting to the name change with memes.

Elon has since confirmed in an interview with Joe Rogan that X Æ A-Xii is pronounced X Ash A-12. "So, X is just the letter X, Æ is pronounced as Ash. And, A-12 is my contribution and it is just pronounced as A-12."