Harry and Meghan's choice of 'Lilibet Diana' loaded with significance
"I think that a lot of people are saying, quite rightly, that this is a form of olive branch to the royal family," historian Andrew Roberts said.
Royal baby names have an important job: to boost the brand and carry tradition into a new generation.
The latest royal baby, the daughter of Prince Harry and Meghan, boasts her own royal names, but with a twist.
Lilibet Diana, born Friday morning in California, was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, as well as her paternal grandmother, Diana, the Princess of Wales.
Lilibet is the queen's nickname used by her family, including her husband, Prince Philip, who passed away in April after 73 years of marriage. Old family letters show the queen signing her name with the moniker, and a diary entry by her grandmother in the 1940s referred to her as Lilibet. It’s also the name that she signed the card she placed on Philip’s coffin, according to the historian Andrew Roberts.
Harry and Meghan’s daughter’s middle name, Diana, “was chosen to honor her beloved late grandmother, The Princess of Wales.” Diana was killed in a car accident in August 1997 and would have turned 60 this year.
Diana looms large over the current royals, and this latest arrival, who will be known as Lili, isn't the only one of the queen's great-grandchildren to be named after both Elizabeth and Diana. The full name of Prince William's daughter Charlotte, 6, is Charlotte Elizabeth Diana.
Harry recently spoke in detail about the impact his mother’s death had on his mental health in "The Me You Can't See," an Apple TV+ documentary series executive produced by both Harry and the media mogul Oprah Winfrey that aired last month.
He said that through therapy he was able to come to terms with his feelings and that he now felt closer to Diana than ever.
“My mom would be incredibly proud of me. I’m living the life she wanted to live for herself,” Harry said of his new life outside the royal family in the documentary. “I’ve never felt her presence more as I have done over the past year.”
He also said that he had a photo of Diana in his son’s room and that one of Archie's first words were “Grandma Diana.”
Harry and Meghan stepped down from their roles as senior royals last year and now live in California, and Lili's birth comes as relations between the couple and the royal family are at a low point.
In March, Harry and Meghan sat down with Winfrey for a tell-all interview on their decision to step back from their roles. The couple also discussed Meghan’s suicidal thoughts, and racism in the United Kingdom.
“I think that a lot of people are saying, quite rightly, that this is a form of olive branch to the royal family,” Roberts said. “It's obviously an honor, and it's something that is, as well as that, a message, I hope at least, that the events of the spring are all behind them.”
