The United Kingdom’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have denied a report that claimed the couple didn’t ask Queen Elizabeth II about naming their newborn Lilibet, after the monarch’s childhood nickname, according to CNN. A spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan on Sunday announced that the second child of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, had been born at a hospital in Santa Barbara in California on Friday morning.
When Queen Elizabeth II was a toddler, her grandfather, King George V, would affectionately call her Lilibet while imitating her failed attempts to say her name. The nickname stuck and came to be used by close relatives. A BBC report, citing an unnamed Buckingham Palace source, had earlier stated that Harry and Meghan never checked with the Queen whether they can use the moniker before naming their child.
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A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said that Prince Harry spoke with the Queen before announcing his daughter’s name and the monarch was supportive of the decision, reported CNN.
“The Duke spoke with his family in advance of the announcement. In fact, his grandmother was the first family member he called,” CNN quoted the spokesperson as saying. “During that conversation, he shared their hope of naming their daughter Lilibet in her honour. Had she not been supportive, they would not have used the names,” the spokesperson added.
The baby’s middle name, Diana, is in honour of her grandmother and Harry’s mother, who died in a car crash in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi on motorcycles.
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During an explosive interview with iconic talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harry and Meghan had first revealed they were expecting a daughter. The couple talked about the difficulties faced by them in the British royal family. Meghan claimed that the royal family refused to make her son a prince partly due to conversations about how dark his skin might be. The Duchess of Sussex refused to explicitly name the person, saying it would be “damaging” to them. However, Prince Harry later clarified that Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were never part of those conversations.
