Buckingham Palace removed Meghan Markle’s name from Archie’s birth certificate, but it wasn’t the same for Kate

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are big fans of nicknames. As well as the sweet ones they have for each other, with Harry referring to Meghan simply as ‘M’ and Meghan calling her husband ‘H’, even Harry’s own name is, in fact, a nickname as King Charles III and the late Princess Diana called the Duke of Sussex ‘Henry Charles Albert David’ at birth.  The couple’s daughter Lilibet, who was named as such after Queen Elizabeth’s own nickname, has her own sweet nickname, Lili, and even her play area has got its own nickname, ‘Lili Land.’

On top of this, if you needed any more convincing of their penchant for nicknames, Prince William calls his brother Harry ‘Harold’ possibly because Harry is often a shorter nickname for Harold.  But for all the names they can come up with, Meghan’s own is technically missing from her son Prince Archie’s birth certificate as, after he was born, Buckingham Palace ‘dictated’ a change on the document.

On 5 June, nearly a month after Archie was born on 6 May 2019, the royal’s birth certificate was edited to name his mother as ‘Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex’ instead of the original name placed on the document, ‘Rachel Meghan.’  Meghan’s occupation, like Kate Middleton’s on her children’s birth certificates, was listed as ‘Princess of the United Kingdom’.

According to reports in The Sun, this name change was an unprecedented move for the Royal Family as Kate Middleton, who at the time of Archie’s birth had given birth to all three of her children, was allowed to use her own name on their birth certificates – though there was one unusual detail on Prince George’s birth certificate that caused confusion.

Following the change of name, Omid Scobie, a royal author and friend of Harry and Meghan’s, tweeted a statement ‘from a spokesperson for Duchess Meghan’ clarifying the change. The statement read, “The change of name on public documents in 2019 was dictated by the Palace, as confirmed by documents from senior Palace officials. This was not requested by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex nor by the Duke of Sussex.”

On the birth certificate for the couple’s second child, Lilibet Diana, Meghan is listed as ‘Rachel Meghan Markle’, without any of her royal titles appearing on the document.  The change of names is strange. But, in the Royal Family, there are no rules as to how people should be styled on the document. For example, Kate Middleton is listed as ‘Catherine Elizabeth’ on her three children’s birth certificates while Princess Diana was listed as ‘Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales’ on the certificates of her two sons Prince William and Prince Harry.

There was drama surrounding Archie’s birth before this document change though as Prince Harry documented in both his recent memoir Spare and his and Meghan’s Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan.  The couple broke ‘tradition’ by not standing on the steps of the hospital with their newborn after his birth and, by the time the press had been told that Meghan was in labour, the couple were already back at their home Frogmore Cottage.

While Harry said this wasn’t his choice, it remains unclear why this deviation from tradition took place with the Prince simply stating that the Palace wanted to keep ‘people tuned to the show.’  In the end, two days after Archie’s birth, he was introduced to the world with a photo call held in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle.