Princess Kate (aka the Duchess of Cambridge) is Pregnant!

[Tora Ziyal]

While we're being pedantic... The Royal Family's official website goes into much detail about styles, titles and names. I thought this tidbit was particularly interesting:

For the most part, members of the Royal Family who are entitled to the style and dignity of HRH Prince or Princess do not need a surname, but if at any time any of them do need a surname (such as upon marriage), that surname is Mountbatten-Windsor.

Not sure why I've gotten so interested in this. I must be watching too much Downton Abbey!

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ IIRC, William and Harry are using the last name 'Wales' for their military careers. I guess there's a reason for that, but it escapes me. Maybe because it's shortest of all the possible names they could be using?

[tighr]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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^ IIRC, William and Harry are using the last name 'Wales' for their military careers. I guess there's a reason for that, but it escapes me. Maybe because it's shortest of all the possible names they could be using?

While they were in the military (and prior to William receiving his Duchy), They follow the practice of taking a subsidiary title of their father. In youth, their names were Prince William of Wales and Prince Henry of Wales. It was simpler to remove the "of" and simply go by William Wales and Harry Wales.

This all actually kinda goes hand in hand with that thread in the Trek General forum about aliens with one vs two names... Royalty and Peerage is one of those situations on Earth where individuals don't follow conventional naming guidelines. I would think it would be weird to not have a last name.

[Tora Ziyal]

^ That, and maybe to be as low-keyed as possible about who they are, since as far as the military is concerned, they're only lieutenants?

Oops, that was to MLB.

[Tora Ziyal]

tighr wrote:

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While they were in the military (and prior to William receiving his Duchy), They follow the practice of taking a subsidiary title of their father. In youth, their names were Prince William of Wales and Prince Henry of Wales. It was simpler to remove the "of" and simply go by William Wales and Harry Wales.

This all actually kinda goes hand in hand with that thread in the Trek General forum about aliens with one vs two names... Royalty and Peerage is one of those situations on Earth where individuals don't follow conventional naming guidelines. I would think it would be weird to not have a last name.

Except they do have a last name. They just don't use it much. (See quote and link in message #106.)

[tighr]

Tora Ziyal wrote:

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Except they do have a last name. They just don't use it much. (See quote and link in message #106.)

While that's true (and I think Mountbatten-Windsor is a super cool name), none of the royals seem to use that in public usage. As mentioned, Harry and William used Wales, and their cousins Beatrice and Eugenie use "York" as a last name at school. I think Charles and Andrew used Windsor when they were in school, or at least I remember reading that somewhere.

"Mountbatten-Windsor" is a really weird concept. It's not really their legal name (like on passports and stuff), but they can use it if they need to. I don't pretend to know how they use it or would use it in day to day life, but as far as their legal name is concerned, that's not part of it.

[wissaboo]

sorry to interupt, but she's been released from the hospital

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view...aves-hospital/

[Tora Ziyal]

tighr wrote:

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While that's true (and I think Mountbatten-Windsor is a super cool name), none of the royals seem to use that in public usage. As mentioned, Harry and William used Wales, and their cousins Beatrice and Eugenie use "York" as a last name at school. I think Charles and Andrew used Windsor when they were in school, or at least I remember reading that somewhere.

"Mountbatten-Windsor" is a really weird concept. It's not really their legal name (like on passports and stuff), but they can use it if they need to. I don't pretend to know how they use it or would use it in day to day life, but as far as their legal name is concerned, that's not part of it.

It must be their legal name. The website said one occasion for its use is "upon marriage". The first time the name appeared on an official document was the marriage register when Princess Anne got married in 1973. Can't get more legal than that.

And, yes, Mountbatten-Windsor is very cool.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wonder, are any of the royals Trekkies? Somebody could ask them what their last name is and they might say "You couldn't pronounce it."

[Tora Ziyal]

^Well, I posted somewhere here that one of the Queen's dogs is named Vulcan (seriously!), so...

[Candlelight]

CoveSanta wrote:

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They are not pregnant. She is pregnant. I absolutely hate that "we are pregnant" or "they are pregnant" cutesy terminology.

No offense, just taking the opportunity of your comment to vent on a pet peeve...

Ha, I didn't even realise I'd typed that.

[Candlelight]

Speaking of the whole rumoured twins thing, I caught the tail end of Entertainment Tonight which was leading into the midday news bulletin and they had a whole heap of celebrity twins (like ashton kutcher, keifer sutherland, a few others).

I didn't catch the start of the segment but I guess it was based on this...

[lurok]

The woman who put the Australian prank call through committed suicide today. Kate and William have sent condolences.

[Deckerd]

How do you know she committed suicide? Are you clairvoyant? Can you contact the dead?

[1001001]

Deckerd wrote:

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How do you know she committed suicide? Are you clairvoyant? Can you contact the dead?

Several sites have reported it as "an apparent suicide" or a "suspected suicide".

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-...arent-suicide/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ionist-1478123

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-suicide.html

No one knows for sure yet though, at least by what's been released officially.