As Meghan confirms she's a 'Sussex', how do royals get their surnames?
Meghan has revealed that she now goes by the surname Sussex, explaining in her new Netflix show that it feels "meaningful" to share a name with her husband and children.
The revelation came during the second episode of, With Love, Meghan, during a candid chat with guest, Mindy Kaling, 45.
When the actor and comedian casually referred to her friend as "Meghan Markle" the former Suits actor gently corrected her.
"It’s so funny that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know, I’m Sussex now," Meghan told Kaling. "You have kids and you go, 'No, I share my name with my children' and that feels so, I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me but it just feels so much. This is our family name, our little family name," she added.
It's a sentiment she has previously discussed in an interview with People. "It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognised how meaningful that would be to me until we had children," she told the publication. "I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me."
The name, she added, "is part of our love story."
"I think as the kids get older, they’re so excited about, ‘Oh my gosh, Mama and Papa, how did you meet?’ I think that will come with time as they get older, but for right now a huge part of our love story is that we share the name Sussex," she added.
How royals get their surnames
Meghan and her husband Prince Harry, 39, were granted the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex by the late Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding gift following their marriage in May 2018.
Their children were originally named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor (more on that later), but after King Charles' ascension, they were officially granted Prince and Princess titles, in keeping with royal tradition.
The official website for the royal family explains that members of the Royal Family can be known both by the name of the Royal house, and by a surname, which are not always the same, and adds that often they do not use a surname at all.
It goes on to explain that before 1917, British Royal Family members had no surname, but only the name of the house or dynasty to which they belonged.
"Kings and princes were historically known by the names of the countries over which they and their families ruled," the site explains. "Kings and queens therefore signed themselves by their first names only, a tradition in the United Kingdom which has continued to the present day."
But in 1917, everything changed when George V specifically adopted Windsor, not only as the name of the 'House' or dynasty, but also as the surname of his family.
When the late Queen Elizabeth II took the thrown in 1952 the Windsor family name was confirmed, but in 1960, The then Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh decided that they would like their own direct descendants to be differentiated from the rest of the Royal Family.
It was therefore declared that the Queen's descendants, would carry the name of Mountbatten-Windsor, with some exceptions including those with the title of Royal Highness, Prince/Princess (for example Prince Harry and William), or female descendants who marry.
The official Royal Family site explains that this meant that all the Queen's children, "on occasions when they needed a surname, would have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor".
Unless William, Prince of Wales chooses to make his own changes when he becomes king, he will continue to be of the House of Windsor and his grandchildren will use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.
Of course such frequent changes to last names is confusing, so the royal family often does not use them. For example, when Prince William and Prince Harry were attending school, they went by the names William Wales and Harry Wales as an homage to their father’s Prince of Wales title.
Similarly, Prince George and his siblings adopted the surname Cambridge for their time at school, coming from William’s previous title of Duke of Cambridge.
But as these surnames are not commonly used, it is often best to refer to either the Royal Family member’s first name or their title, as Meghan's friend Kaling discovered.
Read more about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex:
Five ways to be a more ‘present parent’ as Meghan shares her love of it in Netflix show (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)
How Meghan reinvents herself in Netflix show and what’s in her ‘new chapter’ (Yahoo Entertainment, 6-min read)
What’s on TV tonight: With Love, Meghan finally arrives on Netflix, and more (Telegraph, 17-min read)
