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

^ We're being totally serious here! And stop calling me Shirley.

 

That's a great book!

 

I'll just continue to call her Kiki Wigglesworth.

 

There's four different things being discussed here:

1) What her actual name is (Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge [currently]. As a member of the royal family, she does not have a family name like you or I. That is her full name. "Middleton" is gone, and it is now incorrect to use it when referring to her.)
2) Her official style (Her Royal Highness Princess William, Duchess of Cambridge, or Countess of Strathearn when in Scotland. This is for example what would appear on a wedding invitation or any other use of her formal titles. It is incorrect to use Catherine anywhere in her style.)
3) What the media prefers to call her (Princess Kate; it is of course their prerogative to casually call her whatever they like)
4) What you think everyone should call her (Princess Catherine)

If you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. She is not a princess. The media called Diana "Princess Di", but she was never a princess, either. In fact, when she was Princess of Wales, she was still not a princess, she was simply married to the current Prince of Wales, and thus took the feminine form of her husband's title. Her actual name at the time was Diana, Princess of Wales.

If and when William rises to the crown, she will be officially styled as "Queen Catherine", however.

Now, you can argue that these names, titles, and styles are all antiquated jargon, and that's all well and good. But if you're going to do it properly, then do it properly.

The bit above about any female children of William and Kate not being titled princess at birth has more to do with the fact that current letters patent only grant titles to the grandchildren of the monarch. Since its been a while (ever? I dunno) that a sitting monarch has sired great-grandchildren, those rules do not currently exist. A male child of William gets to be a Prince by virtue of being a direct line male decedent of the monarch.

If it is a girl, and those rules are extended, then it is possible that Kate's daughter be a Princess and yet Kate is not a princess.

 

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:

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

 

^ 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.

 

^ 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.

 

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.

 

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

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/286448/Smiling-Princess-Kate-leaves-hospital/

 

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.

 

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."

 

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

 

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

 

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...

 

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

 

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