On a lighter note: Musk & Grimes name baby boy after Mach 3 jet…but only Roman style

by | May 27, 2020 | On a Lighter Note, Seradata News, SpaceX

The SpaceX and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and his rap-star girlfriend Grimes’ attempt to name their new baby boy X Æ A-12 has had a little hiccup. Because of a problem with Californian law, they had to change this from an Arabic to Roman numeral style X Æ A-Xii after it was pointed out that only alphabetic letters are allowed in babies’ names. As to the name’s meaning, well the X is for unknown variable, the Æ hints at either love or artificial intelligence (AI), while the A-Xii (A-12) is after the Mach 3 predecessor jet to the SR-71 spy plane.

A-12 jet aircraft. Courtesy: Wikipedia

Before this change, to help them out, your correspondent did suggest via Twitter some alternative aircraft names. The 1960s where the A-12 came from has many other excellent fighter jets. Thus, Mirage Musk would have been a good one, as would Phantom, Draken or Lightning Musk, or even the space-sounding Starfighter Musk, although obviously Mig-21 Musk is a non-runner for the reasons above.

Alternatively, from an earlier aeronautical era how about Spitfire Musk. Or even in its German pronunciation: “Achtung! Achtung! Spitfeuer!” But let’s not mention the war…even soon after the VE-Day celebrations.

Of course, there are the early biplanes as well. Sopwith Camel Musk has a certain ring to it. Or, even better, Gloster Gamecock Musk. Although, given how many children he has, Elon probably should keep that moniker for himself.

How about the rockets…Atlas or Titan Musk, or even Saturn V Musk. Marvellous!

It was, of course, unlikely that Elon would have plumped for a competitor rocket to name his boy after. So, no chance of an Omega Musk…which would be tricky if he ever hoped to achieve “Alpha male” status.  By the way, your correspondent has talked to an Ariane before…and jolly nice she was too.

Musk is not the first to give his baby a strange name. Space fan rock star David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, along with his then wife Angie, originally gave his child the mystical name of Zowie – Zowie being the male version of Zoe which apparently is Ancient Greek for “Life”.

As he grew up, young Zowie Bowie wanted a normal name, first calling himself Joe Bowie before settling on Duncan Jones  (Jones being David Bowie’s real surname), which he now uses in his career as a director. By the way, this son of the Space Odyssey song writer did his bit for space arts with his recommended sci-fi mystery movie Moon (2009).

On that Lunar subject, the alternative rock musician Frank Zappa called his daughter “Moon Unit”. Not surprisingly, now grown up, she prefers to be called just Moon.

The first rule in naming your kid, or your pet dog, is to always call him or her something you are not embarrassed to shout out in a park or the back yard.

Your correspondent’s mother briefly toyed with the idea of calling him Xenophon but it sounded too much like senna pod, and this writer was lucky that she and his dad switched it to David. Mind you, there are a lot of us Davids about. This writer has memories of being in a student house with eight Daves in it. The conversation at the door often went: “Is Dave in, no I think he is out with Dave, but Dave is upstairs, etc.”  To set himself apart, this writer did consider changing to a different name…Ramrod.  Well Ramrod Todd does have a certain ring to it!

By the way, when naming a baby, don’t forget that initials can make a name embarrassing as well. A recent colleague accidentally gave his daughter the rather infective sounding initials VD.

Still, at least your correspondent was grateful not to be given embarrassing initials via a middle name. For example, he might easily have been called the poisonous sounding David Derek Todd – DDT, or even the rather thicker, David Ian Michael Todd, DIM Todd, And that would never do.

 

 

 

About Seradata

Seradata produce the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Galactic Energy of China suffers first launch failure of its Ceres-1 rocket losing insured Jilin 1 Gaofen 04B-01

Having been launched at 0459 GMT on the morning of 21 September it later filtered out that the Ceres-1 Y11 Read more

Starlink Group 6-17 is launched by Falcon 9

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 0338 GMT on 20 September Read more

Electron KS rocket has another failure losing Acadia 2 radar Earth observation satellite

Rocket Lab launched Electron KS from Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 0655 GMT on 19 September 2023. The Electron was Read more

China launches Long March 2D carrying Yaogan 39 trio

China successfully launched a Long March 2D/2 (CZ-2D/2) from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, Sichuan Province, China at 0312 GMT on Read more

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 with Starlink Group 6-16 aboard

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 0338 GMT on 16 September Read more

Soyuz MS-24 is launched into orbit on Soyuz 2-1a from Baikonur on way to ISS

Soyuz MS-24 was launched via a Soyuz 2-1a rocket into orbit at 1544 GMT on 15 September 2023 from Baikonur Read more

Victus Nox payload is launched by Firefly Alpha in rapid response launch test

There was an unexpected launch of the Firefly Alpha rocket (its third flight) which took place from Vandenberg, California, at Read more

Film of ancient ‘alien bodies’ is displayed at Congress of Mexico hearing

Following on from similar US Congressional hearings on UFOs which appeared to have footage of flying UFOs, at a Mexican Read more

Chinese Long March 6A rocket carries new Yaogan 40 triplet to LEO

Launching at 0430 GMT on 10 September a Chinese Long March 6A (CZ-6A) rocket carried the Yaogan 40 mission into Read more

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacevideochina25virgin galacticfalcon 9ULAFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 5RoscosmosevaDGAspacewalkaviation weekaressoyuzIGTInternational Space StationBeidouawardsspaceBlue OriginSatellite broadcastingRocket LabStarlinkrussiamoonCargo Return VehicleboeingAirbus DSmarsblogresearchISROOneWeborionspaceshiptwojaxaimpacthyperboladelaymarsdemocratrocketEutelsatobamagoogle lunar prizelunarhypertextlaunchVegaSEStourismbarack obamaconstellationfiguresnorthspaceflightthales alenia spacenode 2fundedRaymond LygoIntelsatLockheed Martin2009Express MD-2Atlas Vromess2Elon Muskdassault aviationaviationLucy2008wk2sstlukradiotestmissilesuborbitaldocking portexplorationAriane 5 ECAVirgin OrbitinternetChina Manned Space EngineeringAriane 5SLSsts-1222010flightspace tourismNorthrop Grummancotsnewspapermissile defensegalileospaceportExpress AMU 1Long March 2D/2Electronbuildspace stationaltairLong March 4Cinternational astronautical congresssoyuz 2-1ashuttleProton MEuropean Space AgencyLauncherOneCosmosIntelsat 23scaled compositeshanleybudgetrulesnew yorkAriane 6shenzhouspace shuttleatvVietnamcongressMojaveboldenLong March 2COrbital ATKnew shepardInmarsatGuiana Space CenteriaccnesksclawsSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BILSUS Air Forceprotonlunar landerTalulah RileyApollodarpaFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5Kuaizhou 1AVega CSkylonAstriumeupicturebaseusaastronautdragonlanderfiveeventTelesatSSLElectron KSNorth KoreaAprilSNCWednesdayinterviewSea Launchfalcon50thcustomerlinkLong Marchatlantissuccessor