When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s second child was born in 2021, they opted for the moniker Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor – but some claimed the royal couple ‘copyrighted’ their baby’s name while Markle was still pregnant.
Lilibet was famously the nickname for Queen Elizabeth II used by her parents, sister and husband.
It is said to have originated back when the late Queen was a tot and too young to pronounce her own name. And, like most childhood pet names, it just stuck.
Following the birth of Harry and Meghan’s daughter, there was a lot of debate over whether the Queen approved of them using her nickname for their offspring.
While they claimed to have her blessing, royal author Robert Hardman took aim at the couple in his book Charles III: New King, New Court, The Inside Story.
He wrote: “One [aide] privately recalled that Elizabeth II had been ‘as angry as I’d ever seen her’ in 2021 after the Sussexes announced that she had given them her blessing to call their baby daughter ‘Lilibet’, the Queen’s childhood nickname.”
According to Hardman, Queen Elizabeth reportedly said: “I don’t own the palaces or the paintings, only my name, and now they’ve taken that.”
Other reports at the time alleged that she felt she was unable to say no when approached about using the name, while the BBC reported that Meghan and Harry hadn’t even asked the monarch for her blessing.
However, a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan responded to the claims that the Queen was unhappy about them using her pet name.
They said: “The duke spoke with his family in advance of the announcement – in fact, his grandmother was the first family member he called.
“During that conversation, he shared their hope of naming their daughter Lilibet in her honour. Had she not been supportive, they would not have used the name.”
Speaking to GB News, royal commentator Angela Levin called the couple’s alleged actions ‘appalling.’
She said: “That’s an incredibly sad comment. I think one of the reasons she [the Queen] felt that way was because it was discovered that Meghan, even before Lilibet was born, had taken out the names officially so that she could use them to buy things and to identify them.”
Host Eamonn Holmes then asked: “What do you mean? They’d copyrighted the name?”
Levin replied: “Yes. Before she had Lilibet, I think that was awful for the Queen because she gets drawn into owning organisations due to the name being so unique.
“This name is just for her because she couldn’t say Elizabeth when she was young.
“It’s also for her family, her parents, and the Duke of Edinburgh; they all called her it out of love, it’s very intimate.
“People who don’t know about that will think that the Queen is supporting this, let’s buy it. I think it’s appalling.”
