Buckingham Palace Comments on Rumor Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Royal Baby Name Was Revealed
Buckingham Palace made a very rare move: commenting on a conspiracy theory going around that somehow, the Royal Family's website had already revealed the name of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's baby due to a glitch. A similar theory went around last year regarding Kate Middleton and Prince William's third child, Prince Louis, right after he was born and before his name was announced.
It began among some hawk-eyed fans this week, who noticed, as Yahoo! UK reports, if you search terms like "/prince-arthur,” “/prince-alexander,” or “/prince-james,” after royal.uk (the Royal Family's homepage address) it'll redirect to the homepage versus if you search for another term, like "/princess-victoria," it'll give you a page not found.
The redirect led some people to conclude that oh, maybe Meghan will name her baby one of those names. (Meghan and Harry also are not sharing their baby's gender until he or she is born, so some people see it as a giveaway that they are having a boy.)
But that's completely off. A website glitch didn't give away the baby's name in 2018, and it isn't giving away Meghan and Harry's baby name now, a Palace spokesperson confirmed to Yahoo UK. "A large number of search term redirects were set up some time ago on royal.uk," the spokesperson explained. "This was in order to improve user experience. For guidance you will note that other names preceded by ‘prince’ or ‘princess’ produce the same result.”
There's also another reason why those names aren't likely Meghan and Harry's. Their children probably aren't going to have prince or princess titles. Ahead of the royal baby's birth, royal reporters Omid Scobie and Emily Andrews talked on their podcast On Heir about how they understood from sources that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex didn't want to give their children royal titles.
"We’ve heard from several sources on both sides that the couple really hope to forgo the formality of royal titles," Scobie said.
Also, procedurally, the Queen would need to step in to make Harry and Meghan's children princes and princesses; it isn't automatic. Andrews explained that the Queen would need to issue a letters patent so Harry's children would receive HRH titles. She did so with William's children because at that point, an heir to the heir's children would not receive titles. And she made that move well in advance. Andrews said the Queen issued that letters patent "at least four or five months before George [Kate and William's first child] made his or her appearance." At this point, no letters patent has been issued for Harry's children.
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