Grimes and Elon Musk welcomed a new baby into the world earlier this week, they named the child, ‘X Æ A-12’, which was… surprising. But now, as pointed out by TMZ, it’s unlikely the couple will be able to register the name in the state of California.
If you need to be brought up to speed, X Æ A-12 stands for three different things, as explained by Grimes. “X, the unknown variable, 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),” she tweeted.
X, the unknown variable
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)— Gℜiꪔ⃕es 小仙女 (@Grimezsz) May 6, 2020
Online, people have speculated over the pronunciation of the name, with the consensus currently saying it’s “Sasha Archangel”.
As TMZ have pointed out though, X Æ A-12 will be a difficult name for Grimes and Musk to register in their home state of California. This is because the state doesn’t accept names with symbols or numbers in them.
PEOPLE Magazine spoke to a family law attorney, David Glass. He says the name isn’t technically illegal but it won’t be accepted.
“I don’t think you can say it’s illegal — it just won’t be accepted,” said Glass.
“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 went on to explain that in California, names with accents or Roman numerals aren’t even accepted.
“They have an opportunity to appeal the rejection of the birth certificate application but it’s unlikely that it will be granted because, again, California… has been struggling with using symbols.
“They tried to change the [rule] back in 2014 to allow certain characters, accents or umlauts — those sorts of things — and the bill got dropped because [of the cost] to upgrade their computer systems to allow these accents.”
