Elon Musk's New Baby's Weird Name, Explained

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and acclaimed musician Claire "Grimes" Boucher had a secret baby in December, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone — including the Vanity Fair reporter who discovered the child’s existence during an interview with the mother.

What isn’t surprising, though, is that the couple decided to give the baby another off-the-wall name. After all, these were the people who named their first kid "X Æ A-Xii." Their new daughter — dubbed "Exa Dark Sideræl Musk" — is no exception.

Confused? Don't worry. We've got you covered.

Exa refers to exaFLOPS, according to Vanity Fair, a term used to describe a computer's ability to perform one quintillion floating-point operations a second. Dark is a nod to "the unknown," according to Grimes.

"People fear it but truly it’s the absence of photons," she added. "Dark matter is the beautiful mystery of our universe."

The last and perhaps strangest part of the name is Sideræl — pronounced as "sigh-deer-ee-el," according to Grimes — which she describes as being "a more elven" version of the word sidereal, which means "relating to distant stars." That part seems to track with both parents' interests.

"The true time of the universe, star time, deep space time, not our relative earth time," she told Vanity Fair, adding that it’s also a reference to the "Lord of the Rings" character Galadriel.

All in all, it’s an incredibly nerdy but certainly distinctive name. Despite its complexity, though, Grimes said that the two refer to their daughter as "Y," which is fitting as they call their son "X." Needless to say, that's probably another nod to math and physics.

The "Oblivion" singer added that the couple is still separated but have remained on good terms — so we’ll be sure to give you an update if they have another kid with a nearly unpronounceable name.

More on Y: A Reporter Heard an Infant Screaming and It Turned Out Elon Musk Had a Secret Baby with Grimes

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