Grimes And Elon Musk's Baby Name May Not Be Legal In California

The long-cherished celebrity tradition of thoroughly absurd baby names has reached new heights. Gone are the days Chris Martin and Gwyneth "Goop" Paltrow could shock us with a simple name using actual letters like "Apple." Grimes and Elon Musk upped the ante, welcoming their first child, X Æ A-12, on May 5. The sci-fi-core name is expected from two people who starting dating after making the same obscure A.I. joke on Twitter. However, the couple might run into some problems with X Æ A-12's name from a little institution known as California law, which forbids the use of numbers and symbols in a legal name.

People spoke with attorney David Glass, who said while the name isn't "illegal," it's not valid in the eyes of the state's law. "In California, you can only use the '26 characters' of the English language in your baby name," he explained. "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."

If Grimes and Elon filled out X Æ A-12's birth certificate "with the odd numbers, dashes and symbols, it will be submitted and then rejected, and they'll be asked to submit it again," according to Glass. Sure, they can appeal the rejection, but the chances are not in the couple's favor. "It's "unlikely that it will be granted because, again, California ... has been struggling with using symbols," said Glass.

Grimes broke down a detailed explanation for her child's name: The first character, X, is for the unknown variable, while Æ represents Grimes' elven spelling of A.I. Lastly, A-12 signifies her and Musk's "favorite aircraft," a Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft. "No weapons, no defenses, just speed," she wrote. "Great in battle, but non-violent." She also noted that "A" equals "Archangel,” a reference to her favorite song.

There's still no official word on X Æ A-12's exact pronunciation, but daily efforts are being made, as evidenced below.