Meghan Markle‘s new Netflix cookery show has been making waves around the world for its ‘toe-curling’ lack of self-awareness and ‘bland’ kitchen advice.
But amidst all of the viral moments, the scene that has raised the most eyebrows is the one where she revealed she now wants to be known as ‘Meghan Sussex’.
The new preference was revealed when a clearly irritated Duchess of Sussex snapped at her ‘friend’, actress Mindy Kaling, for referring to her by her maiden name.
She slapped-down Mindy and said: ‘You have kids and you go ‘No, I share my name with my children’. I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me but it just means so much to go ‘This is OUR family name’. Our little family name.’
‘Well, now I know and I love it,’ her clearly awkward guest stuttered in response.
However, Meghan didn’t always seem so upset at the thought of someone using Markle, even after she married into the Royal Family.
Rediscovered footage from her infamous Oprah interview in March 2021 shows her emotionally describing the importance that her name had to her.
When discussing her decision to do the bombshell interview, she said: ‘If that comes with risk of losing things, there is a lot that has been lost already.
Rediscovered footage from Meghan’s infamous Oprah interview in March 2021 shows her emotionally describing the importance that her name had to her‘I’ve lost my father, I’ve lost a baby. I nearly lost my name… There’s a loss of identity.
‘I hope the takeaway for people is to see that there is another side, that there is a life worth living.’
Royal fans have shared the video clip and highlighted how Meghan seems to have made quite the transformation on her name in the four years since the interview.
Now it seems the Duchess wants to throw away the Markle name and replace it with her Sussex title.
The Daily Mail’s Diary Editor Richard Eden said on the latest episode of the talk show Palace Confidential that the change in Meghan’s attitude was ‘quite odd behaviour’.
A slew of fans have taken to social media to call Meghan a ‘hypocrite’ for her change of position.
Fortunately for her, by the time it got to Drew Barrymore this week, the message had well and truly been dictated – and received.
‘Meghan Sussex,’ the star trilled as she introduced her on her eponymous show, to a now smiling duchess.
Commentators have suggested Meghan’s decision to keep her peculiar exchange about the name with Mindy in the final cut of her series was done to make a point.
This is because it wasn’t amusing or lighthearted like the rest of the series, causing it to stick out like a sore thumb.
The Duchess’s insistence on using her title as a surname has caused a stir amongst royal-watchers, with many questioning her decision to adopt ‘Sussex’ as her family name, particularly in light of the couple’s limited connection to the county.
A slew of fans have taken to social media to call Meghan a ‘hypocrite’ for her change of stance when it comes to her name
‘It’s so funny you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know I’m Sussex now,’ Meghan told Mindy Kaling, who looked confused
Royal fans have shared the video clip from the Oprah interview and highlighted how Meghan seems to have made quite the transformation on her name in the four years since
Drew Barrymore (pictured with Meghan) became the first celebrity to refer to Meghan Markle by the moniker ‘Meghan Sussex’
Harry and Meghan (pictured together in her new Netflix series Love, Meghan) were bestowed the Sussex title by the late Queen Elizabeth II on their wedding day in 2018
They have only ever officially visited the region once – for just six hours – after a whistle-stop tour in October 2018 taking in Brighton, Chichester and Peacehaven.
While members of the Royal Family entitled to the style of HRH Prince or Princess do not actually need a use surname day to day, according to Buckingham Palace, officially the family’s name is Mountbatten-Windsor – and is recorded as such on both Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s birth certificates.
This dates back to 1960 when Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh decided they would like their own direct descents to be distinguished from the rest of the Royal Family, without changing the name of the Royal House (which had been Windsor since 1917, after George V anglicised the name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment).
And so it was declared in the Privy Council that the Queen’s descendants would add a hyphenated ‘Mountbatten’ to reflect Prince Philip’s surname, which he himself took on in 1947 when he became a naturalised Briton.
However it may come as a surprise to some to learn that Meghan is not actually wrong either.
In fact members of the Royal Family – indeed, the peerage generally -often use their dukedom or title as a ‘shorthand surname’.
Hence Harry was always known as Harry Wales when at school and in the military as a nod to his father, King Charles, then the Prince of Wales.
William has also always used the name Wales, and his children do so too now.
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie (at least before they got married) also used the surname York, after their father, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
But the children of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, who while entitled to be referred to as HRHs have chosen not to use their titles, use Mountbatten-Windsor.
It is, therefore, not entirely surprising at all that Harry and Meghan would choose to have their children, Archie and Lilibet, known as Sussex, or that they would use it as well.
In her only print interview to promote the series, Meghan expanded further on her use of the name to People magazine: ‘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.
‘I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.’
She added that the ‘Sussex’ name was part of her and Prince Harry’s ‘love story’.
When Meghan claimed to Oprah how upsetting it was to almost lose her name, Archie was almost two years old and she was heavily pregnant with Lilibet.
Wendy Bosberry-Scott, editor of Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage, explained to Rebecca English: ‘The official surname of the Royal Family is Mountbatten-Windsor. However, it has long been the practice of the Royal Family, and indeed the peerage, to use a title as a surname where one is available. This is why when Prince Harry was in the army, he was known as Harry Wales, as his father was then Prince of Wales.
Meghan pictured with Prince Harry who makes a fleeting appearance in his wife’s lifestyle series
‘Now that he is the Duke of Sussex, it is perfectly within protocol for him to use Harry Sussex and for his wife to use Meghan Sussex. This is no different from the Duke of Norfolk calling himself Edward Norfolk, when his surname is Howard. ‘
Ms Bosberry-Scott added: ‘Typically, where a title is involved, children are registered under both names, as was the case when Prince Archie was registered in 2019; he appears in the indexes of the General Register Office under Sussex and Mountbatten-Windsor.
‘There are many other examples of this happening. The Sussexes are not doing anything unusual here as it is common practice within the Royal Family and the British peerage.’
Joe Little, managing editor of specialist publication Majesty magazine, also confirmed this, explaining: ‘It is a practice that has been going on for years. While not specifically dictated in the rules according to Buckingham Palace, there is fluidity.’
What remains interesting, however, is that Meghan is suddenly so keen to have the new family name known now – and so pointedly insisting on being called by it.
And the reason why she has changed her tune from four years ago, when she emotionally lamented how she almost lost it.
However the Daily Mail’s Diary Editor Richard Eden believes he knows the reason why Meghan is now so keen to promote Sussex as her second name.
‘It’s clearly a warning shot,’ one palace insider told him, confirming that Meghan seemed to be making a very public point of emphasising how much the title meant to her and, by implication, to Harry.
‘Which is to say that the Royal Family should not so much as contemplate stripping them of their titles!
‘It seems beyond doubt that Meghan is anxious to hang on to the baubles of royal life – even if that involves the embarrassment of publicly correcting showbusiness-star ‘friends’ who fail to address her in the style to which she has become accustomed.’
