Sometimes, royal rules are meant to be broken. In a move being hailed as “unprecedented,” Meghan Markle’s name was changed on son Archie’s birth certificate — it doesn’t say what it did the day that he was born. Could this have to do with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s royal exit?
The Sun reported that Meghan’s first names, Rachel Meghan, were removed and replaced with “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex.” And some believe that the move could have been a “snub” to Prince William and Kate Middleton, because Kate’s names were used on the birth certificates of her three children.
They also claim that it could have been seen as a way to align Meghan with Harry’s late mother Princess Diana, who always used the title “Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.”
Archie, who was born Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, was born on May 6, 2019. His birth was registered days later, on May 17. The name change happened on June 5, almost a month after Archie’s birth.
Meghan and Harry did not comment directly on the report of the change, but royal reporter Omid Scobie shared a statement from a spokesperson for Meghan via Twitter.
The statement claims that the name change on the birth certificate was “dictated by the Palace” and “not requested by Meghan The Duchess of Sussex nor by The Duke of Sussex.”It went on to say that the assumption that Meghan would “want to be nameless on her child’s birth certificate” would be “laughable, were it not offensive.” The change on the birth certificate was made mere months before Meghan and Harry left royal life, which led to speculation about why it was made.
Dickie Arbiter, the former press secretary for the late Queen Elizabeth told The Sun that this could have been the earliest sign of them setting the plans for their exit into motion.
Meanwhile, Lady Colin Campbell, the person who spotted the change, noted, “It is extraordinary and raises all kinds of questions about what the Sussexes were thinking.”