Prince William and Prince Harry used a last name honoring their father, King Charles III, before their respective marriages to Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle.
Oftentimes, high-ranking members of the British royal family do not use surnames — and, given their His Royal Highness statuses, neither William nor Harry had one listed on their birth certificates.
While William, 42, and Harry, 40, occasionally used the Mountbatten-Windsor surname as male descendants of their late grandparents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, they went by the last name Wales while serving in the military in their early 20s.
The moniker was an ode to their dad, who was known as the Prince of Wales before becoming king in 2022 upon Elizabeth’s death.
In a 2009 photo, the brothers could be seen wearing name tags that read, “William Wales” and “Harry Wales.”
They used the name before being bestowed their own official titles from the monarchy, which would become their surnames.
In 2011, William became the Duke of Cambridge when he married Middleton, making him William Cambridge. However, he went back to using the Wales surname more than a decade later when his father passed on the title as Prince of Wales.
Similarly, his three children — Prince George, 11, Prince Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6 — began using Wales in 2022.
Harry, for his part, earned the title Duke of Sussex following his 2018 marriage to Markle, thus becoming Harry Sussex.
Although Harry and Markle took a step back from their royal duties in 2020, they were allowed to keep the Sussex name as long as it was not used for official business.
Meanwhile, their children — Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3 — originally went by the Mountbatten-Windsor family name.
According to the royal family’s website, Elizabeth and Phillip decided in 1960 that all direct descendants — without HRH titles or the title of prince or princess — would use the hyphenated surname, a combination of their family names.
However, the little ones became Prince Archie of Sussex and Princess Lilibet of Sussex after Charles, 76, ascended to the throne.
Due to the title changes, it would have gone against tradition for a prince or princess to use the Mountbatten-Windsor surname, making them Sussexes.
Archie and Lilibet are now sixth and seventh in line for the throne, as stated on the royals’ website.
While Harry and Markle’s decision to use the Sussex surname has caused a stir, the “Suits” alum explained their decision during an episode of her new Netflix show, “With Love, Meghan.”
Markle, 43, said the “meaningful” moniker makes her feel closer to her children now that they all share the same surname.
“You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children,’” she said. “It just means so much to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name.’”
The former actress shared a similar sentiment during a recent interview with People, explaining that “a huge part” of her and Harry’s “love story is that we share the name Sussex.”
“I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together,” she said. “It means a lot to me.”
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