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October 30, 2003

Whadda we call Charlie?

Jivha has a puzzle over at his blog about the current visit to India by Charlie. The essence of the puzzle is what to call him (apart from the obvious: "Charlie"). For reasons that should be clear to anyone with half a brain (except of course for Mr "the world is controlled by little green men" Ma-Hard-Hair) it would not be exactly politic to call him Prince (who is a ex-rock singer noise-maker).

Jivha suggests calling him Mr. Charles but I don't like the idea of combining Mr with a first name. Why not use his surname? Well Jivha did some research and found this which clearly states that he was baptised as "Charles Philip Arthur George". Ahhh yes, but my kids were baptised in a similar fashion with absolutely no reference to their surname (not even on the baptismal certificates). So what is his surname?

Well prior to 1917, the royal house of Great Britain was officially "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha). The surname (as best as could be discovered) was probably Wettin (see previous reference). On July 17, 1917 the whole thing was sorted out by Georgie V who basically changed the name of the royal house and the surname to "Windsor" (i.e. named after a castle). This was probably to get rid of the Germanic sounding name given the war between Britain and Germany at the time.

Problem solved, Charlie Wettin became Charlie Windsor.

But wait, there's more. In 1960, the Queen (QE2) issued an Order in Council changing her surname, and the surnames of her descendants to Mountbatten-Windsor . She and her descendants are still members of the "House of Windsor" but their surname no longer matches. (The "Mountbatten" bit comes from her husband - just in case you were wondering.)

Note that in the unlikely even that Charlie gets promoted, he could change his name to match his father (Mountbatten), or pick some other castle or random object and make the whole situation even more confused.

End result: Charlie is actually Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor. Still Charlie would do (unless you are Scot of course in which case Charlie is a living insult to the tribal memory of the real Prince Charlie who was defeated in 1745).

Posted by Ozguru at October 30, 2003 01:10 PM

Comments

Interesting. Does the King/ Queen get to choose the name they want to be known as once they are crowned?

Posted by: Melodrama at October 30, 2003 01:10 PM

I am not sure that it is a "normal" practice but it is hard to tell. Georgie did it for obvious political reasons, Lizzy did it as a way of recognising her husband (who was related to her before they were married). After two generations, I guess a third doing it would not be out of place (ignoring Eddie who wasn't in long enough to establish any traditions).

Posted by: ozguru at October 30, 2003 01:10 PM

My entire rant stems from the fact that we're expected to know what name to *address* the royalty with. Who cares! They're Brit royalty and I'm Indian...I couldn't care two hoots for them. That aside, this entire thing has been pretty informative...although I'm *still* not gonna call him "Prince Charles" ;-)

Posted by: Jivha at October 30, 2003 01:10 PM