Ever since I moved to the U.S. in 2019, one of my greatests struggles has always been people’s inability to pronounce my name correctly. During roll call, my teachers would pause, stare at my name in confoundment, then hesitantly bludgeon it in numerous ways, adding letters that weren’t there while removing the letters that were: “Mahudra” “Madarura” Safe to say, I always knew to just interrupt their futile attempt and say: “Here.”
With bizarre celebrity children’s names sensationalizing on the internet in recent years, I was astonished to hear that Elon Musk named his son X æ A-xii Musk (pronounced x-ash-a12). This name is so ridiculous yet so fitting for Tesla CEO’s son.
My first thought upon hearing X’s full name was that it sounds like the embodiment of a Cybertruck, as in if Cybertrucks had an official name, that would be it. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner — the “X æ A-xii 4000” — or a robot from Star Wars like C-3PO, R2-D2 or EV-9D9.
My second thought was sympathy for all the teachers who can’t even pronounce “Madhura” having to read X æ A-xii Musk on the first day of school. I’ll just say it’s a good thing he goes by “X.”
I genuinely believe that Elon Musk traveled to the future to prompt ChatGPT to generate “a quirky name for the son of a tech giant” and this was the result. It’s, of course, a name that, if assigned to any of us mere mortals without a multi-billionaire father, would lead to a thunderstorm of bullying.
I’m so sorry, X, but I have never heard a name that sounds so wrong but makes so much sense, in context, at the same time.
