NEED TO KNOW
- Meghan Markle is talking about her legal name for the first time since marrying Prince Harry
- Much has been made of Meghan’s last name following a breakout moment from season one of her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan when she corrected Mindy Kaling
- The Duchess of Sussex previously told PEOPLE Sussex was her “shared name” for her family with Harry
Meghan Markle is setting the record straight on her last name.
The Duchess of Sussex, 44, confirmed to The Circuit with Emily Chang in an interview that aired Tuesday, August 26, that she legally changed her name upon marrying Prince Harry in 2018. She is now officially Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the family name she shares with her children, Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4.
While Meghan’s maiden name is Markle, much has been made of what her last name is since joining the royal family. The topic became a talking point on the first season of With Love when Meghan corrected Mindy Kaling when she called her “Meghan Markle” and said, “You know I’m Sussex now.”
During the Bloomberg Originals interview, which dropped the same day that season 2 of her lifestyle series With Love, Meghan premiered on Netflix, Chang pressed, “Give me a tutorial on royal naming conventions. So like, are you Meghan Sussex? Are you Meghan, Duchess of Sussex? Is Markle even on your passport anymore? Is it, we don’t use that term anymore?”
“Well, when I got married, I changed my name. But it’s a complicated one for people to understand, because a last name is not typical in that construct,” Meghan replied, referencing her Duchess of Sussex title.
Chang asked, “I think we expect a last name. But is that a last name or is that—?”
“It’s not, but it’s, it’s used roughly, or loosely, rather. It sounds so silly to say. And I get it, because I’m American and then I went there and I started to understand. But then you come back and as an American, you go, ‘I’m so confused,’ ” Meghan joked. “It’s a dukedom.”
“A dukedom,” Chang repeated. “That’s a new word for me.”
“It’s a dukedom. So, that’s the truth of it. But at the end of the day, you know, yes. My legal name is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, but Sussex for us works as our family name and it’s the name that we share with our children,” Meghan said.
“But yes, since we’ve been married, that’s what I’ve been called,” she added about her name now.
When asked what she has learned about herself “since becoming Sussex,” she responded, “Well, interesting. What I learned about myself is no matter what my name is or what people call me, I’m still the same person. So that didn’t really, that didn’t change who I am. And maybe that’s probably the biggest distinguishing factor.”
When Harry and Meghan got married in 2018, the prince’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth granted them the royal titles of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The couple later adopted their Sussex titles as the surname for their children, Archie and Lilibet, though the children’s birth certificates list their last name as Mountbatten-Windsor, the British royal family’s official surname.
Though Mountbatten-Windsor has been the official last name for the descendants of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip since 1960, Prince Harry and Meghan continued a longstanding tradition within the royal family of adopting their Sussex titles as their children’s surname.
For example, Prince Harry and his brother Prince William were called “Harry Wales” and “William Wales” in school and the military in a nod to King Charles’ Prince of Wale titles at the time, reflecting that status.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE earlier this year, Meghan described “Sussex” as the “shared name” that bonds her, Prince Harry, Archie and Lilibet as a family.
“It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognized how meaningful that would be to me until we had children,” the Duchess of Sussex told PEOPLE. “I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.”
When Meghan appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show in an episode that aired on March 6, the host addressed her guest as “Meghan Sussex” after Kaling’s episode on season one of With Love kicked off the debate about Meghan’s last name.
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“This is the Fast Five with Meghan Sussex,” Barrymore said as they began a question and answer segment.
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