Elon Musk’s decision to change the name of Twitter to X puzzled many; okay almost everyone. However, the name change could be worse. Here are ten names he ultimately rejected.

1. “Fritter” – Nice double entendre; meaning both wasting time and a juicy deep-fried tidbit. Ultimately, too derivative. Mr. Creative Genius only changed two letters?!  

2. “Truth Social” – The domain name was already taken.

3. “Truth-Social” – Dang, someone bought up all variations on Truth Social.

4. “Touch” – Elon was thinking about “reaching out to touch someone” with a message. However, in testing, people did not like saying to acquaintances, “Feel free to touch me.” 

5. “Musklove” – Elon kind of liked the idea of sending muskloves to people, but too Captain and Tennille-ish.

6. “Hammer” – Elon thought saying I got “hammered” would be better than saying I got a “tweet.” However, Mothers Against Drunk Driving were not amused. 

7. “Letter” – This turned out to be too retro. Next-Gen users had never sent or received a letter, so when polled about whether they thought “Letter” would be a good replacement name for Twitter they asked “Which letter?” (This probably planted a seed in Musk’s mind)

8. “Y” – Rejected because Musk knew we would all be asking why change the name? Why “Y”?

9. “Musk-e” – Since “musk” is a greasy glandular secretion, the name fit a lot of what is sent on Twitter, but the name is too easy to mock. (As is the owner’s name)

10. “E-lon” – When talking about messaging, saying that you “E-longed” someone sounded kind of dirty, so no. 

After eliminating all other choices, only X was left.