1000 Years of Royal Baby Names

...for the 100th episode of the Official Baby Names Podcast!

Sep 12, 2023

I was recently invited on The Baby Names podcast—the official podcast of BabyNames.com—to help hosts Jennifer and Mallory celebrate their 100th episode! It’s out today, and you can listen here, or wherever you pod.

We chat about all things related to royal names across the centuries, but as I’m sure you can imagine, that’s a LOT of ground to cover for just one short recording session. Below, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite insights from both the episode and my own research for your reading pleasure.

Listen to the episode

Of course, I have to preface this by saying that we primarily focused on British royal names—but we did bridge the gap between classic and modern during our conversation, and you’ll hear a few international influences sneak their way in from time to time.

In general, though, it’s always good to remember that tradition is the goal with the royals, for everything from their fashion to their names. The point, when choosing a name for a royal bundle of joy is to demonstrate the longevity of the royal line. Names are a big part of creating the image of a stable, unwavering monarchy.

This is why we get a lot of repeat names across the various royal dynasties. In Tudor times, nearly every woman is Anne, Elizabeth, or Mary (listen to any podcast about that time and you’ll hear the frustration in the host’s voice as they try to differentiate them all.

Male names are also repetitious, but they sort of take us through the eras and speak to the ethnic origins of each dynasty. Think of monarchical names alone; you have:

King Henry (there were 8 of them - but none since 1547)
King William (there were 4 of them - but none since 1837)
King George (there were 6 of them, popping up pretty regularly from 1714 to the 1930s)
King Edward (probably the longest-spanning name, taking us from 1272 all the way to 1936).

These “traditional” names, as we think of them today, did have to originate somewhere. Names which are now considered “old-school” were once brand-new introductions, or even inventions, being added to the Royal Family’s roster. Imagine being the Apple Martin of the Middle Ages. But that’s sort of the idea here! The origin of these names then, can often tell us a story about the formation of British royal history itself.

Anglo-Saxon Naming

One of the biggest and most formative dynastic shifts in the British Monarchy was that between the Anglo-Saxon kings (think early medieval England, roughly 886-1066) to the Normans. It is a very abrupt shift, too, the result of William the Conquerer’s 1066 invasion of Normandy.

Anglo-Saxon (pre-Norman) royals mostly gave their children what are called dithematic names, names made of two elements put together. For example: Æthelwulf ("noble-wolf"), Ælfred ("elf-counsel"), Eadweard ("rich-protection"), and Eadgar ("rich-spear").

Family Trees: 500-1066 – The History of England

They also enjoyed naming members of a family on the same theme, so the prefix would often pop up numerous times between father and children—and sometimes even between siblings. With the Anglo-Saxon royals, you can see this in the sequence from Edmund I, to Eadred, to Eadwig the All-Fair, to Edgar the Peaceful, and finally to Edward the Martyr.

Commoners would also have had the option of names indicating their paternity, where you add the suffix -son to a father’s first name to give you the baby’s second name. If you encountered a man named Cuthbert Edmundson, his son might have been called Alfred Cuthbertson. And you could be reasonably certain that his own father was a man called Edmund.

Anglo-Saxon royals did not get to use this convention. But one modern wee royal has had it employed in his name: Prince Archie of Sussex. His full name, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, provides an amazing case study into royal naming on the whole. (We’ll return to him later for a look at his and his younger sister, Princess Lilibet’s, surname.)

Archie means “genuine,” “bold” or “brave”—and before you ask, yes, his name is listed on his official birth certificate as Archie, not Archibald. His middle name, Harrison, has always interested me a bit more because it incorporates that ancient patrilineal naming convention. Harrison → Harry’s Son / Son of Harry.

Harrison feels more American, too, with the likes of Harrison Ford on our side of the pond. Maybe that was a Meghan suggestion?

Nicknaming

Even if these earliest English royals couldn’t yet have last names, they did sometimes get nicknames, or epithets, as their second names (instead of a dynastic name or surname). These usually draw upon some quality from the royal in question…so naturally some epithets are good, some are pretty banal, and others are decidedly bad. But they all influence how we remember a certain monarch years (even centuries) down the line.

One epithet that I love is “Charles the Straightforward,” who was a Holy Roman Emperor in the 10th century. That name, on its own, might make you think, Okay, he was maybe a no-nonsense ruler. But no, Charles was the son of one “Louis the Stammerer.” His courtiers probably gave him his nickname simply because they could understand him more than they could his dad.

Another notable example is Æthelred the Unready, whose first name is composed of the elements æðele, "noble", and ræd, "counsel, advice. His epithet is commonly translated into modern English as “the Unready.” While we might think of this as meaning he was unprepared or taken by surprise, the Anglo-Saxon noun unræd means something like “evil counsel” or “bad plan.” It was once used in reference to the disobedience of Adam and Eve, as the result of the Serpent leading them astray.

Thus, we can reasonably conclude that Æthelred got some bad advice from some malicious or incompetent counselors. But there’s more: Æthelred itself is a dithematic name meaning Noble-Counsel. “Æthelred the Unready,” then, is an oxymoron: “Noble Counsel, Bad Counsel.” His subjects hit the epithet jackpot when they came up with that one.

Sometimes these nicknames are applied during a royal’s lifetime, sometimes after a monarch’s legacy has really taken root. In the case of the negative names, I think you’d probably find more often than not that these come from political opponents or enemies trying to get a negative association to stick.

The more positive epithets would have been applied in recognition or celebration of a certain achievement or a monarch’s legacy.

People who get called “the Great” typically “earn” that epithet because of long reigns or because they presided (successfully!) over a period of immense cultural change. I wouldn’t be surprised if Queen Elizabeth II someday becomes Elizabeth the Great. I have this theory Victoria might have earned herself a “the Great”, had she not already had an entire age named after her with, you know, the Victorian Era.

Other epithets are more practical; they help historians out when dynasties repeat names endlessly. You just need to distinguish one Edgar or Edward from another for your own sanity after a while.

Then, if that weren’t enough, you also have sobriquets, which are more familiar nicknames that replace a royal’s name. Elizabeth I was called Good Queen Bess by her subjects, and Queen Victoria came to be known as the Grandmother of Europe because her descendants kept marrying into other royal houses and creating more royal babies.

Post-Norman Naming

The Norman kings, ruling after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, presided over a period of great change and development for England. Those advancements extended to naming conventions; most Anglo-Saxon names disappeared relatively quickly after the Norman Conquest. French names like William, Robert, and Henry became popular during this period, and for the first time, inherited surnames as we might conceive of them today began to appear.

Now, instead of each successive Edward getting a nickname to tell them apart, or every father and son holding a different last name, a royal family would now have a dynastic name, like the Plantaganets.

We repeat this process with successive royal dynasties, like the Tudors and the Hanoverians, who each brought names from their places of ethnic origin and established them as royally acceptable monikers.

Paying homage to family is the number one priority with royal baby names. That’s why, today, it feels like there is a predetermined pool of names available to royal couples who are expecting. You have Elizabeth, Anne, Mary, Charlotte, and/or Alexandra for girls, and George, Edward, Charles, William, and/or Albert for boys. Maybe Caroline or David if you’re feeling spicy.

Of course, what feels “predetermined” or “conventional” is subject to change based on whatever dynasty has power.

And of course, name diversity also slowly creeps in with every marriage that introduces someone who was born outside the royal fold (think Diana Spencer, Kate Middleton, etc). Perhaps in time, with a more globalized pool of royal spouses joining the family, more “non-royal” names will creep in and widen the pool of “available” baby names.

Trendsetting Royal Names

Zara Phillips (the daughter of Princess Anne and her first husband) is probably the first royal baby in recent memory who breaks the naming convention mold. She apparently got her name not from a royal genealogy chart, but thanks to a suggestion from her uncle, now-King Charles III

Princess Anne said of Zara’s birth: "The baby made a rather sudden and positive arrival and my brother thought Zara was an appropriate name.” She refers to the Greek meaning for the name as “bright as the dawn,” and there’s also a French origin to it, meaning "light.”

There was at first some public…confusion? commotion? at the fact that this new royal infant didn’t possess a capital-R Royal first name, but her middle names more than made up for it: she is Zara Anne Elizabeth.

Another royal naming trend that I quite like is the ability to give more than one middle name. I don’t think we need to go as extreme as giving 4 or 5, but 2 is nice. I think this convention can be traced back only to the birth of the future King George V in 1865: his full Christian name is George Frederick Ernest Albert. His father, King Edward VII, was simply named “Albert Edward” by Queen Victoria.

Since then, though, royal babies come equipped with an arsenal of names. QEII had three: Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. And when the time came, she heightened the stakes, naming her son and heir Charles Philip Arthur George. FOUR names!

Prince William is William Arthur Philip Louis, and Prince Harry is Henry (I know, it doesn’t suit him) Charles Albert David.

And of course, the most recent generation, the Cambridge/Wales kids each boost three of their own: you have George Alexander Louis, Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, and Louis Arthur Charles.

Regnal Names

If that weren’t enough, when a young (or old) royal takes the throne, they actually have the ability to give themselves a new first name, should they be so inclined. This might be out of an effort to sound more regal or (especially in the case of a foreign royal coming over to Britain to rule) to connect them more firmly to the Monarchy’s past.

Queen Elizabeth II’s father, for example, was born Albert Frederick Arthur George, but he decided upon the regnal name George VI when he took over after his brother’s 1936 abdication. Though he was called Bertie by his family, it is widely believed that he chose to rule under his middle name in honor of his father George V.

See how that makes the royal line seem just that much more secure? After an abdication, that’s exactly what you want to model for the public.

There was some speculation before the current monarch, King Charles III, acceded the throne, that he would become one of the royals to choose a new name under which to reign. Anyone familiar with royal history will tell you that there’s some…baggage associated with the name Charles due to the two previous monarchs holding it.

The reign of King Charles I, from 1625 to 1649, led to revolution and the temporary abolition of the monarchy. He was convicted of high treason by Parliament and beheaded. His son, King Charles II, although restored to power, had considerably less of it and could not enact a law without the consent of Parliament. He also had zero legitimate heirs, but did have over a dozen children with various mistresses. He earned the sobriquet “The Merry Monarch” as a result of these romances and his rather hedonistic lifestyle.

Still, Charles kept his given name and has, in my opinion, cemented that as a royal naming convention for at least the next few generations. In a world of constant media coverage and search engine optimization, it will almost literally pay for a royal to carry the name that the public most associates with them to the throne. We’ll likely see King William V in our lives, if not another King George, as well.

The Royal Surname

One of my most frequently asked questions is: Do the Royals have a last name?

Their official website has this to say: “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 often they do not use a surname at all.”

So, in short, the answer is…it’s complicated.

Mountbatten-Windsor is the Royal Family’s official surname today—although it isn’t as simple as all that.

Mountbatten-Windsor was a name that was literally made for the royals, combining the surnames of the Queen, whose family had been going by the surname Windsor for a few years, with that of Prince Philip. This was sort of a concession to Philip when they married, as the Duke of Edinburgh was said to have complained that his children would not bear his name.

The surname Mountbatten-Windsor first appeared on an official document in November 1973, in the marriage register at Westminster Abbey for the wedding of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips.

But even the name “Windsor” which Queen Elizabeth brought into the equation was also a fabricated last name.

During World War I, the Royal Family switched from the decidedly German “Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” (which is a dynastic name that harkens from the time that Queen Victoria married Prince Albert) amid the strong anti-German sentiment of the day.

They adopted the name “Windsor,” after one of their favorite castles, instead—and they did this through King George V issuing a royal proclamation.

A news article announcing this change in 1917 made the distinction that the Royal Family would now use “British surnames instead of German names and titles.” Windsor became not only the new name of the 'House' or dynasty of the Royal Family, but also their surname.

We can, as a result, think of this as a cultural shift: the monarchy was moving away from the old world in which these elite social circles, which operated on titles and territories, dominated. For the first time, the Royal Family was moving into a more modern, Western mindset when it came to their names.

Today, surnames are a part of every single person’s social identity. Modern royals aren’t set as far apart from the rest of society as they used to be (some even have day jobs!), so they too need a surname. But it seems to be a matter of personal preference what a Royal uses as that surname.

If applicable, royal children will often use the territory associated with their father’s title as their last name, for their time in school or the military.

As the son of the Prince of Wales, William and Harry both went by “Wales” as a last name; it’s even on their combat uniforms in old photographs.

Prince Andrew, by contrast, had “HRH Prince Andrew” on his uniform. He hadn’t yet received his Duke of York title by this time, but as the son of the monarch didn’t have anything other than Mountbatten-Windsor to use.

When Andrew did get married (at which time the Monarch typically bestows a dukedom on a son), his children became Princesses of York—so Beatrice and Eugenie, in their bachelorette days, used “York” as a surname. Before their own marriages, they reportedly used it in the workplace.

Similarly, Will and Kate were given the titles Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after their marriage, and so their three children have “Cambridge” on their birth certificates as surnames. This was a choice to use William’s Dukedom as a surname rather than the Royal Family’s at-large name.

But it gets even more complicated, with the title shuffle since Queen Elizabeth Passed away last year. Now that their parents are Prince and Princess of Wales, those kids will have become George, Charlotte, and Louis of Wales. What we don’t know is whether their names have changed on their school attendance rolls.

Archie and Lilibet have Mountbatten-Windsor on their birth certificates, but we don’t know for sure what they might go by in preschool, which Archie should be beginning soon.

Leave me a comment to let me know your favorite royal baby names!