The Real Meaning Of Elon Musk And Grimes' New Baby's Name

Even in the midst of chaos and turmoil, life goes on, and just yesterday the world welcomed its newest baby billionaire, a child born to Elon Musk and his girlfriend Grimes. While Musk didn't do the typical celebrity "new baby" big Instagram reveal, he did respond to questions about the baby from his approximately 12 zillion Twitter followers by first announcing "Mom and baby all good," then revealing the gender ("Boy"), sharing a few pics (including one of him holding the baby that luckily did not break the internet, despite a tweet from a Musk fangirl that implied it might), and finally revealing the name, which – we kid you not – Musk says is "X Æ A-12."

Wow, it's like a blast from the past, back to the hippie days when rock star parents would give their kids goofy names like Moon Unit and Dweezil and Zowie. Of course, the idea of being bullied at school is perhaps not such a concern for future little X Æ, since for all we know he will be tutored by robots on the moon by the time he's old enough for formal education. Still, it's a bit hard on the poor kid, requiring that he'll have to use "insert special character" just to type his own name. And that's not even addressing the question of how you say it, much less what it means.

While Musk has yet to come clean about whether that really is the baby's official name or just a joke, Twitter's stepping in to fill the information gap with speculation. The same tweeter who begged for the baby-holding pic proposed that the name might be articulated as X Ash Archangel, the "Ash" referring to the name given the Scandinavian A-E ligature that is Æ, while Archangel is the nickname of Lockheed's A-12 aircraft. Musk liked this tweet, although that's no indication as to whether it's on the right track.

Other tweets have speculated that the X could stand for Xavier or perhaps even Genesis — X is the Roman numeral for 10, which is evidently an angel number meaning God and his government on earth. 

It seems we will have to wait to see what the meaning behind this unusual name is, if it is indeed the little one's real moniker, or if Musk is just having a little fun with his fans. In any event, here's wishing Musk, Grimes, and baby, um, er, let's just call him baby right now, much health and happiness.