Netizens craved to know the newborn baby's name and have gotten possibly more than they anticipated. The Tesla billionaire revealed the name in his Twitter account - X Æ A-12 - leaving people pondering how to pronounce it, memeing around and exercising in cryptography before the meaning was revealed.
Grimes explained the meaning behind the name, where X goes for the unknown variable, Æ is for her elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence). The A-12 is a precursor to SR-17, which is the couple's favourite aircraft - as Grimes herself described it, "no weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent". She finalized the explanation with the notion that the "A" in the name also represents "Archangel" — which she said is her "favorite song" — while the number "12" stood for the Chinese zodiac sign of the rat.
•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)
Netizens boosted their imagination before they knew the meaning and pictured the school situation for the baby.
In school:
— Ben Mellor-Heslop (@bennmh) May 5, 2020
Joe?
Present
Sophie?
Present
Alex?
They’re sick today
X Æ A-12?
...
P̴͍͇̀̂͋̽̈́͒͂͠Ȓ̷̃̀͠ͅĚ̷͖̳̈́͊̽̚S̷̮̙͍̃͐͌̋̓̂͌̉Ḙ̵̢̢̝̥̮̘͚͋͊̓́̆͊̈́̄ͅN̶̨̤̞̰̔̈̃̒̎̆̊͑͐͝T̷̼͎̤̯̞̂̒͝͝
Hardly anyone has come up with how to properly pronounce the name.
my brain trying to pronounce that pic.twitter.com/Jk2oL8Pj9S
— Alexandra (@wifiblonde) May 5, 2020
Exactly how it's spelled.
— Marcos Carvalho (@riomarcos1) May 5, 2020
But pronounced “Musk” because the X Æ A-12 is silent.
— Michael Suarez (@michaelsuarez_) May 5, 2020
— Manvi Jainth (@parosaurusrex) May 5, 2020
Grimes' child: my name's X Æ A-12
— yung lean fan account 🌱 (@groovytony__) May 5, 2020
me: how do u pronounce that?
Grimes' child: pic.twitter.com/cyPDDKh28V
Some people came up with their ideas on how the name emerged.
when people want to know the name of the kid but you haven't registered all the account names and domains yet pic.twitter.com/MY134sft2w
— FATE (@FateApps) May 5, 2020
Elon Musk is known to have six kids now, but maybe we just do not know the truth.
bold of you to assume he's counting up
— Kleptoplast🌱🕷️ (@Cthulhuigi) May 5, 2020
However, while some were joking, other people took it seriously and suggested their own ways to decipher the name.
I decided your rebus. His name is Neal.
— Дмитрий (@U7wfr0RNuRyolq7) May 5, 2020
In Norwegian from Æ, only E is heard, L is the 12th letter of the English alphabet. And since the name is written as Neal, we find X, the letter N.
Choose your fighter!
Ash Lockheed Musk. Final Answer. pic.twitter.com/9WmIX1dAZP
— Noah Taylor (@noahmtaylor) May 5, 2020