Elon Musk and Grimes' baby name might not even be legal in California
Elon Musk and Grimes left the world dumbfounded when they announced the name of their newborn son: X Æ A-12 Musk. While Grimes offered fans an explanation about the meaning of the name, the pronunciation — and legality — of X Æ A-12 remains questionable.
The California Department of Public Health Vital Records Handbook explains the requirements for completing a birth certificate: "The form is to be completed using the 26 alphabetical characters of the English language," the handbook says. Some punctuation symbols are allowed when necessary, like in a hyphenated last name or one with an apostrophe.
However, using numbers is not allowed under those rules, and using pictures, like an emoji or ideogram, in a name is expressly forbidden.
According to California law, diacritical marks like accents, tildes, graves, umlauts, and cedillas are allowed on vital records like birth certificates. This rule was actually added in 2017, after many people complained that without those marks on birth certificates, names that use them were recorded incorrectly, the Sacramento Bee reports.
It appears that only some parts of X Æ A-12 Musk's name are valid — the X, the A, and the hyphen. The 12 would not be allowed under state rules, and the two-letter combination Æ is also not a standard character in the English alphabet.
It is unclear if Musk and Grimes are going to amend the baby's name, or if this is really what they even wrote on the birth certificate.
