Meghan Markle is celebrating her daughter Princess Lilibet’s fourth birthday with a heartfelt tribute — and some new photos.
Lilibet marked her golden birthday on June 4, turning 4 years old, and the Duchess of Sussex honored the occasion with a post on Instagram.
“Happy birthday to our beautiful girl! Four years ago today she came into our lives — and each day is brighter and better because of it,” Meghan posted on alongside previously unseen images of the pair cuddling beside the ocean and Lilibet swaddled as a baby with her mom.
“Thanks to all of those sending love and celebrating her special day!” Meghan added.
Meghan, 43, and Prince Harry, 40, married in May 2018 and welcomed their first child, Prince Archie, now 6, a year later. In 2020, the couple stepped back from their royal duties in the U.K. and relocated to Meghan’s home state of California, where Princess Lilibet, who goes by Lili, was born in June 2021.
Harry and Meghan named their daughter Lilibet Diana as a meaningful homage to two family members: the Duke of Sussex’s grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth — whose childhood nickname “Lilibet” was used by her closest family — and his mother, the late Princess Diana, who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 when Harry was just 12.
In a March interview with PEOPLE, Meghan shared how she included Lilibet in her As ever lifestyle brand launch, featuring a special photo of them on the website’s homepage.
“Being able to have my own little girl, as I’ve spent so much of my life championing the rights of girls and women, and to be able to see this as a multigenerational story — Archie is of course included in that, my husband is of course included in that — but I love the heritage feeling of it and knowing this is something that I can create in front of my daughter and teach her what it’s like to be a working mom” Meghan said. “This is something that hopefully can be part of her legacy too.”
While Harry and Meghan are raising their children outside of the limelight, the photos that they have shared of them through the years show both children have inherited his red hair!
Prince Harry previously spoke about how his kids’ hair color come from Princess Diana’s side of the family on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2023. When asked if he sees any family members in his children, the Duke of Sussex said, “Definitely my mum. The ginger gene is a strong one!”
“The Spencer gene is very, very strong,” he continued, referencing his mother Princess Diana’s side of the family. “I actually really, genuinely thought at the beginning of my relationship [with Meghan] that should this go the distance and we have kids that there’s no way the ginger gene will stand up to my wife’s genes, but I was wrong! Go gingers.”
In 2023, PEOPLE was first to confirm that Prince Harry and Meghan had adopted royal titles for their children. Archie and Lilibet were afforded the titles of prince and princess as grandchildren of the sovereign when King Charles acceded in September 2022 and the confirmation came upon Princess Lilibet’s christening in March 2023.
“The children’s titles have been a birthright since their grandfather became monarch,” a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told PEOPLE at the time. “This matter has been settled for some time in alignment with Buckingham Palace.”
Though both children’s birth certificates feature their last name as Mountbatten-Windsor in a reflection of the British royal family’s official surname, Harry and Meghan have adopted Sussex as their children’s last name.
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It’s an informal tradition within the royal family for children’s surnames to reflect their parents’ royal titles and Meghan told PEOPLE about how “meaningful” it is that her family is linked by their Sussex surname.
“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 says. “I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.”
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