r/UKmonarchs • u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey • 2d ago
Question How do monarchs pick their name?
Hi! I was just wondering about this. I was wondering, how do the UK monarchs pick their names? For example, Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI, was born as Albert, and Queen Victoria was born as Alexandria, and nicknamed as Drina to her family. I know the royals have multiple middle names, so I was just curious.
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u/IndividualSize9561 2d ago
George VI chose that name to give a sense of continuity/stability after Edward abdicated. I believe (read somewhere) that Victoria was always going to rule as Victoria. But usually, monarchs did keep their own names, or an Anglicised version of their name.
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u/erinoco 2d ago
I believe (read somewhere) that Victoria was always going to rule as Victoria.
Yes. In most texts from dating from the period of her childhood, she is almost always referred to as the Princess Victoria, and only referred to as the Princess Alexandrina Victoria in very formal contexts such as statute. There is even a debate for the Commons in 1831 where one Member suggests that Parliament renames the Princess Elizabeth, rather than VIctoria. on the grounds that the former was more congenial to "the feelings of the people". (This wasn't received seriously by anyone else.)
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 2d ago
Ohhh ok I see! So, for example, if my name was Ava, and my middle name was Rachel, i could pick either of them? I’m kinda dumb lol (that’s not my real name I’m just asking)
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u/squiggyfm George VI 2d ago
You could literally call yourself Steve if you wanted. No restrictions.
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u/HickAzn 2d ago
Waiting for King Chad…
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u/squiggyfm George VI 2d ago
Pretty sure Charles II would fit that.
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u/CynGuy 1d ago
Thanks for the Diet Coke spit laugh I just had…..
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
Can Queen consorts change their name? If so I’m changing my name to Queen Steve
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u/squiggyfm George VI 1d ago
That actually a good question. I don’t think it’s ever happened before - and it is a regnal name, implying that it’s for the regent. But if Camilla wanted to be called Jehosaphat and Charles ok’d it who’s to stop her?
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
Yes.
Several Queen Consorts did in fact. Matilda of Scotland (the wife of Henry I) was originally Edith, but was renamed Matilda on her marriage, and there are others.
Not so much a name change, but another 'using the middle name rather than the first' example of a Queen Consort is Mary of Teck, the wife of George V-she was actually 'Victoria Mary' (along with a whole host of other middle names), but she dropped the 'Victoria' when her husband became King.
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u/Any_Inflation_2543 2d ago
Most just keep their names. Victoria didn't like the name Alexandrina, Edward VII didn't want to bear the name of his father and George VI wanted to provide continuity with his popular father amid his brother's abdication.
I'm quite sure William will reign as William V and George as George VII as regnal names are uncommon and those two names are unproblematic.
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
I wonder, because I saw that Queen Victoria was called Drina in private because of the Alexandrina part, but was she also called Victoria in private?
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u/ferras_vansen Elizabeth II 1d ago
Her MOTHER called her Drina, and because she had a love-hate relationship with her mother, she chose not to be called Drina because it was a bit infantilizing given her upbringing. Not that many people would call her by name - only close family. There's a famous anecdote that after Albert's death, she supposedly said, "Now there is no one who will call me Victoria." I don't know how true that is, because her older half-sister was still alive, and they were very close. Maybe she allowed her sister to call her Drina? 🤔
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u/Patient-Rich7294 2d ago edited 2d ago
English/British monarchs taking Regnal names hasn't ever been a common thing and its only been done for logistic reasons.
Victoria - as you said she went with her second name. She preferred Victoria and it might have been a form of taking control of her own life for once.
Edward VII - his name was Albert Edward. Now, a lot of people say that he didn't call himself King "Albert" because of how important Albert was. But, again I think it has more to do with Bertie taking control of his life where he actually could. Victoria had so much control she wouldn't let Bertie even pick the name of his first born son. He had to be "Albert" and all the boys had to have "Albert" in their name. Also, it was very "German" sounding.
George VI - "Albert" as well. But he changed it to "George" for continuity, due to the Abdication .
This is why the intense speculation that Charles would change his name was just to create a talking point. Charles had no reason to change his name, just people thought he would because of the connections to the last 2 Kings called Charles. But Elizabeth wouldn't have called him that if she thought he'd have to change it.
As for how they choose them, traditionally they just choose one of their own names, they have about 5 or 6 of them and most of them are the same. The closer you are to the crown the more restrictions on what you can be called. George, Edward, Albert, Louis, Henry, Philip etc.
But, the monarch doesn't have to choose from names they already have. They can choose another.
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
I feel like this question is more appropriate to monarchies like the papacy
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
It's equally true of other monarchies as it is the Papacy.
The Pope could choose to use his baptismal name as Pope, it's just none of them for many centuries have.
But that's still just convention and part of the royal, or rather, papal prerogative. A new Pope could in theory use his own name, or one of his middle names, or adopt a new one.
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u/wombatiq 1d ago
In theory, the monarch has Royal Prerogative to pick both their name, and their regnal number. So they could call themselves King Bing Bong Clarissa Shoe XIV.
In practice they rule/reign as their first name and the current convention is to use the next highest number of the same name.
So if we got another James he would be James VIII.
If we got another Mary she would be Mary III
When William ascends he will most certainly be William V.
The three that have picked another name have always taken a name from among their other given names, but there is absolutely no rule that says they have to.
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
So for example, if Princess Charlotte becomes Queen she could pick either Charlotte, Elizabeth or Diana?
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u/wombatiq 1d ago
Yes she could. She probably wouldn't.
She could choose to be Queen Jane, or Queen Marjorie or Queen Fiona or Queen Latifah or Queen Cottonsox.
A king or queen can choose any name. Any name. It doesn't have to be one of the names they were baptised with or given.
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
Ohhh really I didn’t know that!
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
Yeah, strictly speaking, in a monarchy, the name the monarch uses, as well as the numbering is part of the royal prerogative.
Or in other words, it's whatever the monarch says it is (in a constitutional monarchy like the UK, subject to the 'advice' of the elected government, of course).
So the monarch can use the name they usually used prior to succeeding to the throne, they can use one of their middle names, or they can come up with a new name that isn't one of their names at all. It doesn't have to follow a logical sequence.
Queen Victoria chose to use her middle name rather than her first name, Alexandrina; her son Edward VII chose to use his middle name of Edward rather than his first name, Albert. George VI was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur George, but chose George as his regnal name. It didn't happen, but William IV considered using his middle name Henry (so he would be Henry IX), but decided against it when it was pointed out that this number was used by the the last Jacobite pretender, Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, who had only died 23 years previous.
This isn't unique to the British monarchy either, the first name of George I of Greece for example before becoming King was actually Vilhelm, but he chose one of his (many) middle names as his regnal name.
Coming up with a new name hasn't happened (yet) for English/British monarchs (although it has for several consorts who were renamed on marriage, but they're not reigning monarchs, so outside the question), but it did for one Scottish one: Robert III of Scotland was originally John, but he chose the name Robert because John had bad connotations, as it had been used previously by the ill-fated John Balliol.
There's quite a few examples of this outside Britain too: the first King of Norway after the dissolution of the union with Sweden was Carl, a Prince of Denmark, but he took the name Haakon VII on becoming King, and simultaneously renamed his son Alexander to Olav.
As regards the numbering: that doesn't follow a logical sequence because it retrospectively reset at the Norman Conquest-even though England as a unified state has existed since 927AD-so logically, the last monarch of Britain called Edward should have been Edward XI, as there were three Saxon Kings of England called Edward prior to the conquest, but he was Edward VIII because only post-conquest monarchs count.
'Illogical' numbering of monarchs is a thing that can be found outside Britain too: the first King of a unified Italy was Victor Emanuel II (because he followed the Savoy numbering, not resetting it on unification), yet his son was Umberto I, not IV like he would be if he followed the Savoy numbering. Likewise the second Emperor of a United Germany was Frederick III, not I (or IV if he followed the Holy Roman Empire numbering), and he had actually considered using a different number, but had been dissuaded so by Bismarck, and instead used the Prussian numbering (also the position of German Emperor was not separate from that of King of Prussia, so it was somewhat justified).
A little closer to Britain, George III was declared King of Hanover in 1814 at the end of the Napoleonic wars, but he wasn't renumbered in Hanover to reflect this -which meant that his grandson George V of Hanover was officially 'the Fifth', even though he was the second King George of Hanover-because he was following the British numbering. Confusing, I know.
Likewise, Elizabeth II was 'the Second' in all of her other realms like Canada and Australia etc. despite being the first Queen Elizabeth of those countries. Likewise her son is 'Charles III' even though there wasn't a Charles I or Charles II of Canada, Australia, etc.
Another modern example of odd numbering is the current King of Sweden, who is Charles XVI Gustav-but he's only the ninth King Charles of Sweden-the reason for this is because the Swedish monarchs in the 1500s started numbering themselves after a mythical series of Swedish Kings, some of which existed, some of which didn't.
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
The 'whichever numbering for England or Scotland is higher, the higher number is used' rule is supposed to be constitutional precedent, because it has already been established for previous monarchs since the 1707 Act of Union.
For the six Georges, two Edwards and Queen Victoria, it didn't matter, because there had no previous monarchs of Scotland of any of those names, so the English numbering was higher (and would have been the same for the Georges in both). Unless someone wants to count Edward Balliol as a legitimate monarch, which most don't.
But for William IV, it works, because he would have been William III following the Scottish numbering (William I of Scotland being William the Lion and William II being William III of England), but William IV following the English-and as it was higher, it fits the (backdated) convention. Interestingly enough, there was less controversy in 1830 with William IV as there was with Elizabeth II in 1952.
And of course, Elizabeth II, where she was 'II' following the English numbering', but 'I' of Scotland.
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u/shamhatbonaparte 2d ago edited 2d ago
the only monarchs who “picked their names” were George VI and Edward VII, both of whom were named Albert and didn’t want to carry the memory of a not-particularly-popular German consort.
all other monarchs used their own names. Victoria (as mentioned above) was christened Alexandrina Victoria but she was always called Victoria in public and private.
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
William IV considered using his middle name, Henry, so he would be Henry IX ,but was dissuaded from doing so by his ministers -the reasoning being that that was the name and number used by the Cardinal York (Henry Stuart, the younger brother of the Young Pretender and the younger son of the Old Pretender, the last Jacobite claimant). The Cardinal had only died in 1807, 23 years previously, so memories were still fresh.
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u/Szaborovich9 1d ago
Queen Victoria wanted all her male descendants to have the name Albert. Not one King was named Albert , but were George’s who she felt were disgraceful.
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
More recently, the Duke of York (Prince Andrew) has Albert as one of his middle names, and one of the grandchildren of the Duke of Kent is Albert Windsor.
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u/ProfessionalNo449 1d ago
Elizabeth II is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, which I think is lovely that she was named after great grandma and grandma Queen Consorts. Princess Charlotte's middle names are the same (Elizabeth Diana).
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u/rorzri 1d ago
My favourite is how Robert III was actually just called John
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
Oh really?
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u/ferras_vansen Elizabeth II 1d ago
Yes, he was actually born John Stewart, but chose to reign as Robert III, partly to more closely associate himself to his great-grandfather Robert the Bruce, but also to disassociate himself from the widely-disliked and deposed king John Balliol.
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
Yes, he's actually the only example (to date) of a monarch renaming himself using none of his given names in British history.
Every other monarch has used one of the names they were given at birth, even if (like Edward VII and George VI) it was one of their middle names.
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u/Raincitygirl1029 1d ago edited 1d ago
Queen Victoria was christened Alexandrina Victoria in honour of her godfather, Tsar Alexander, and her mother, the Duchess of Kent (born Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld). And yes, she was nicknamed Drina within her family. But the newspapers almost always called her Princess Victoria of Kent, even as a child. So her choosing Victoria as her regnal name wasn’t totally unexpected.
George VI’s choice of regnal name was a little weirder, because he had a younger brother, Prince George, Duke of Kent. So it was kind of like by adopting his father’s regnal name, he was taking his little brother’s own name. However, the Duke of Kent seems not to have objected to his brother Albert taking his (and their farher’s) first name as his regnal name. Incidentally, the Duke of Kent predeceased his brother, dying in a military plane crash in Scotland in 1942.
Now, George was among the many middle names of Prince Albert, Duke of York (second son of George V and Queen Mary). George was just recycled later as the first name of their fourth son. The Duke of York apparently wanted to establish continuity with his father’s reign over the disruptions of his older brother’s abdication (which had stirred up small-R republican sentiment in the UK).
So rather than be King Albert I (a brand new name for the dynasty), he’d be King George VI. George V had also been popular, so perhaps Bertie wanted to borrow some of that goodwill associated with the regnal name George.
The irony of the Duke of York choosing the regnal name of George is that it wouldve made his great-grandmother Queen Victoria FURIOUS. She wanted as many of her grandsons and great-grandsons as possible to bear the first name of her beloved husband, Albert, the Prince Consort.
The future Edward VII and his wife Queen Alexandra, while still Prince and Princess of Wales, obediently called their first son Albert Victor (although he was always known as Eddy informally). Their second son, the future George V, they called George, a name Victoria hated. But since the Waleses had bowed to the Queen with their first baby’s name, they called their second child George, just to assert some independence.
Prince Eddy (really Albert Victor), Duke of Clarence, died unexpectedly of pneumonia in 1892 aged 28. Which meant his 26 year old brother Prince George, Duke of York was now in direct succession to the throne (after his father, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII). There are letters from Queen Victoria trying to bully her grandson into promising that he would use Albert I as his regnal name after she and his father were both dead. The future George V refused.
The late Eddy’s fiancé Princess May of Teck (later Queen Mary) was recycled to become the wife of Prince George, Duke of York. The British Royal Family had no intention of wasting a perfectly good Anglican princess just because her first fiancé had kicked the bucket.
Their first child was called Edward, although within the family he was always called by the last of his middle names, David. Queen Victoria was furious that George and May had called the future king Edward after Eddy’s nickname, rather than after his official first names of Albert Victor. She wanted her great-grandson who was in the direct line of succession to be called Albert, so there would one day be a King Albert of Great Britain.
The second child of the Yorks (future George V and Queen Mary) was born on the anniversary of the death of Albert, Prince Consort. His parents called him Albert as a tribute to his great-grandfather (and to placate his by now elderly but still formidable great-grandmother. Their older son was healthy, and there was no expectation that Prince Albert (known informally as Bertie) would ever be king.
But the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII, still later the Duke of Windsor) refused to marry. By January 1936 when George V died, ALL of his and Queen Mary’s surviving children were already married except their eldest son and heir. Who was already 41 when he became a bachelor king.
George and May’s second son, Albert, Duke of York, and third son, Prince Henry Duke of Gloucester, both married the daughters of British aristocrats. The fourth son, Prince George, Duke of Kent, married a foreign princess, Marina of Greece and Denmark. Their only daughter, Mary, Princess Royal, married the future Earl of Harewood. But thanks to male preference primogeniture, all of Mary’s brothers and their children were ahead of her in the succession.
And then Edward VIII decided he wanted to make his latest mistress, Wallis Simpson, his Queen. But in 1936, a woman who’d been divorced not once but twice was considered totally unacceptable by the politicians. Interestingly enough, not only by the Conservative government. At the time, many of the Labour opposition were staunch Nonconformists (Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, etc) who found the idea of a twice divorced queen immoral. So the king abdicated after an 11 month reign, and Prince Albert, Duke of York was next in line.
Finally, Queen Victoria’s dream of King Albert I would be realized! But no, Bertie chose to be George VI instead. She must have been turning in her grave when THAT announcement was made.
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u/Itsahootenberry 1d ago
And can’t forget to mention neither King Charles III, Prince William, nor Prince George have the name Albert lol
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u/Raincitygirl1029 1d ago
Well, Queen Victoria HAS been dead since 1901, and she was the only one pushing that name. I suspect after she was safely buried, her much put-upon relatives breathed a sigh of relief. And resolved never again to call a royal child Albert.
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
Another funny thing about Queen Victoria is that her mother and father originally wanted her named 'Victoria Georgiana Alexandrina Charlotte Augusta'. Victoria after her mother, Georgiana after her uncle the Prince Regent (the later George IV), Alexandrina after her godfather Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, Charlotte after her cousin Princess Charlotte, daughter and only child of the Prince Regent, and...I'm not sure why Augusta.
But at her baptism, the Prince Regent vetoed the use of his name, or that of his daughter (who had not long before died in childbirth, and was widely mourned across the country), or Augusta. This caused a bit of a scene, with her mother getting rather upset, but in the end the Prince Regent said "give her the name of the mother then, but it must not precede that of the Emperor", which is why she was 'Alexandrina Victoria' rather than 'Victoria Alexandrina'.
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u/meeralakshmi 1d ago
What they like best pretty much. Sometimes they may take into account what has been used as a regnal name before (in the case of George VI).
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u/Spare-Way7104 1d ago
British monarchs choose their regnal name from among their names. For example, King Charles III was named “Charles Philip Arthur George” so he could have chosen any of those four names as his regnal name.
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u/NeverEnoughGalbi 1d ago
I wish he had decided to reign as George, but since he was as old as he is, it would have been too much of a change.
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
Ohhh like for example, if Prince Louis became King, he could pick either Louis, Arthur or Charles?
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u/Spare-Way7104 1d ago
Exactly. And the late Queen could have reigned as Elizabeth II, Alexandra I, or Mary III. She chose Elizabeth.
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u/freshmaggots Lady Jane Grey 1d ago
Ohhh I see thank you so much! I wonder if she chose Elizabeth because of Queen Elizabeth I?
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u/Snoo_85887 1d ago
Another interesting little titbit as regards names is the fact that in some of the other commonwealth realms (that is, the other independent countries in which the British monarch is also head of state), for the last two monarchs anyway, is that sometimes some of them have another language other than English that is in official use (often used alongside English), and quite often the name of the monarch has been translated into the indigenous cognate (version) of the monarchs name.
Most of the time (like in Canada, where English and French are co-official), the name is the same, but not always:
So in New Zealand, where the two official languages are English and Maori, Elizabeth II was 'Irihapēti II', and her son is now 'Tiāre III' in Maori.
In Fiji, during the period 1970-1987 when she was Queen of Fiji (and afterwards as Tui Viti, or High Chief), Elizabeth II was 'Ilisapeci II' in Fijian.
In Malta, during the period 1964-1974 when she was Queen of Malta, Elizabeth II was 'Elizabetta II'.
Another less recent example of this is Corsica (aka the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom), where George III was officially King of Corsica from 1794 to 1796-and his name was officially rendered in Italian as 'Giorgio III'.
Another example is the Kingdom of Hanover -George III, George IV and William IV were respectively officially known as 'Georg III', 'Georg IV' and 'Wilhelm IV' on coins and official documents, using the German forms of the names, but with the British numbering (and Ernest Augustus and George V of Hanover were 'Ernst August' and 'Georg V' respectively).
Lastly, even after he became King of England, Scotland and Ireland, William III's name was rendered as 'Willem' or sometimes 'Willem Hendrik' in the Netherlands.
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u/squiggyfm George VI 2d ago
All but three were just their names. I think Victoria chose hers to not sound as Germanic, Edward to give deference to his father, and George to have continuity with his father.