While With Love, Meghan avoids directly referencing the House of Windsor, certain tabloids (and Traitors US contestants?) have made a mountain out of Meghan Markle’s decision to identify as “Meghan Sussex.” Here, a guide to what’s what when it comes to the Sussex family’s surname.
What’s Meghan’s maiden name?
Meghan was born Rachel Meghan Markle, but she’s been known as Meghan Markle for most of her adult life (and throughout her run on Suits). Her full legal name cropped up on various official documents during her time in the UK, such as the Instrument of Consent that the late Queen Elizabeth II issued ahead of her marriage to Harry: “Now know ye that we have consented and do by these presents signify our consent to the contracting of matrimony between our most dearly beloved grandson Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales KCVO and Rachel Meghan Markle,” reads the handwritten vellum scroll. (Before tying the knot, the first six people in line for the throne must get the monarch’s approval.) KCVO, for those wondering, stands for Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, a form of recognition for “services to the sovereign” first established by Queen Victoria in 1896. Harry was made KVCO by the Queen in 2015, shortly before he left the army after 10 years of service.
And what’s Meghan’s married name?
When Harry and Meghan married on May 19, 2018, the Queen created them HRH Harry, The Duke of Sussex and HRH Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. In Scotland, meanwhile, the pair became the Earl and Countess of Dumbarton, while in Northern Ireland, they’re formally known as the Baron and Baroness of Kilkeel. When Harry and Meghan relocated to America, they retained all of the above titles, but were stripped of the right to style themselves as HRH, ie His or Her Royal Highness, a designation that separates the royal family from other senior members of the British peerage (e.g., the Duke and Duchess of Westminster).
Where does “Mountbatten-Windsor” come into all of this?
Meghan’s last name might, in theory, be Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor (more on which below), although she’s never publicly identified herself as such. Her son, Prince Archie of Sussex, however, was definitely christened Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, while her daughter, Princess Lilibet of Sussex, was christened Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
To recap, prior to 1917, members of the royal family had no official surname, but were sometimes referred to by the House to which they belonged (think Henry VII being known as Henry Tudor). After Queen Victoria of the House of Hanover married Prince Albert, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, in 1840, their children, including the future King Edward VII, adopted their father’s House, concluding the Hanoverian period and initiating the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha one. By the time Edward VII’s own son, King George V, succeeded to the throne in 1910 though, tensions between Germany and Britain were rising dramatically. After the First World War broke out, the King dropped the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, instituting Windsor as both the name of his House and his surname. “All descendants in the male line of Queen Victoria, who are subjects of these realms, other than female descendants who marry or who have married, shall bear the name of Windsor,” read the royal decree.
This was all well and good until Princess Elizabeth married Lt Philip Mountbatten in 1947. The newly created Duke of Edinburgh wished for his children to become part of the House of Mountbatten—just as Queen Victoria’s children had become part of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Churchill and the royal family, though, were keen to protect the Windsor name. A compromise was finally reached in 1960, when the Queen announced that any of her “deroyalized” descendants would go by Mountbatten-Windsor. “The Queen has always wanted, without changing the name of the Royal House established by her grandfather, to associate the name of her husband with her own and his descendants,” Buckingham Palace explained in a statement. “The Queen has had this in mind for a long time, and it is close to her heart.” Technically, then, few senior royals should be known as Mountbatten-Windsor—with the surname reserved only for those descendants of the Queen with neither the “style, title and attribute of Royal Highness” nor the “titular dignity of Prince or Princess.” Regardless, over the years, Mountbatten-Windsor has been adopted by more or less all of Elizabeth and Philip’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren whenever a surname is necessary.
So is Meghan Sussex correct?
There’s no issue with Meghan referring to herself as Meghan Sussex. Various members of the royal family use titles as last names. Per Debrett’s: “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex can, and do, use the ‘surname’ Sussex. This is in line with the time when Prince Harry used Wales as his surname whilst serving in the army, to reflect that he was the son of the (then) Prince of Wales. Now that he is the Duke of Sussex, his wife and children can, and do, use Sussex as a surname.” Harry and Meghan aren’t the only members of the royal family to do this, either. Before King Charles III granted them the titles of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh in 2023, James, Earl of Wessex – the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II—and Sophie, Countess of Wessex were widely known as James and Sophie Wessex. Moreover, just as Archie and Lilibet go by Sussex, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis go by Wales in many situations.
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