Why are Prince Harry and Meghan Markle criticised for the 'rude' baby name "Lilibet Diana"?
The queen’s father, King George VI, affectionally gave her the nickname Lilibet as a small child, and the only person to reportedly call her this name in recent years was her late husband Prince Philip
Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor is only 3 days old, but already the baby daughter of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — or her name, rather — has become the latest focus of the rancorous debate about her parents’ fraught relationship with the British royal family.
Lilibet is the private family nickname for Queen Elizabeth, as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said themselves in their birth announcement Sunday.
“Lili is named after her great-grandmother, Her Majesty the Queen, whose family nickname is Lilibet,” the couple said, suggesting that their little girl will generally be known as Lili. She was born Friday at a hospital in Santa Barbara, near the couple’s Montecito home.
The baby’s middle name, of course, pays tribute to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997 when Harry was 12. But it’s Lilibet that has become the source of controversy.
To Harry and Meghan’s fanatical supporters, this name choice is a lovely, personalized way to honor Harry’s 95-year-old grandmother and to make sure her special nickname lives on.
Some observers also wonder if the choice could help mend the couple’s rift with the royal family, after they gave bombshell interviews to Oprah Winfrey, criticizing the monarchy for being dysfunctional and for harboring at least one racist member. Despite that criticism, their supporters insist that Harry and Meghan have only ever shown love and respect for the queen.
But to Harry and Meghan’s critics, the name choice is a cynical effort by the exiled royals to try to curry favor with the queen and to associate themselves with the trappings of the monarchy, even after they stepped away from royal life in 2020 and their Winfrey interviews damaged the institution’s public image. The critics believe the couple will do anything to grab attention while they build their brand as U.S.-based entertainment moguls and mega-celebrities.
The sensitivity around Lilibet stems from its intimate family origins. The queen’s father, King George VI, affectionally gave her this pet name because she had a hard time pronouncing “Elizabeth” as a toddler. The only person to reportedly call the queen Lilibet in recent years was her husband, Prince Philip. At his funeral in April, the queen left a handwritten note on top of his coffin signed “Lilibet,” the Daily Beast reported, adding that Prince Charles never referred to his mother in this familiar way.
“I don’t think it’s right, it’s rude,” said royal biographer Angela Levin on “Good Morning Britain,” the Daily Beast reported. Levin once wrote a sympathetic book about Harry but has since become one of his and Meghan’s fiercest critics. “It was a very private nickname from her husband, who hasn’t been long dead,” Levin added.
Levin also was among those who speculated, without evidence, that the queen would be upset that the couple appropriated her private nickname for such a public purpose. She said the queen must be “desperately unhappy.”
But on the same show, journalist Afua Adom expressed delight with the name choice, the Daily Mirror reported. “Lilibet is such a pretty name. It’s such a cute name. It is not just about being named after the queen,” Adom said. She also suggested that the name Lili is “a bit of a nod” to Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, because Doria’s nickname for Meghan is flower.
Yet another royal expert, Sunday Times royal editor Roya Nikkhah, saw the name choice as a potential peace offering from the Sussexes to the royal family, the Daily Beast reported.
“It’s a very intimate name that the queen has used since she was very little and for me I thought perhaps this was a diplomatic olive branch offered to the royal family after what has been a fractious year between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the royal family,” Nikkhah said on BBC Radio 4’s Today show.
Royal author Phil Dampier added, according to The Sun: “I suspect Harry and Meghan have realized they’ve overdone their criticism in recent months and the penny has dropped that they’ve caused deep hurt to Harry’s gran and other family members.”
Dampier added: “They might be trying to undo some of the damage.”
But swirling around the debate are questions about whether Harry and Meghan sufficiently notified the queen or sought permission from her to use her nickname, according to multiple reports. Dampier said: “Lilibet is such a personal name to the Queen you would hope they gave the palace the heads-up.”
Page Six reported that Harry and Meghan immediately phoned the queen after Lilibet’s birth on Friday. The couple also called the rest of the family on Friday, including Prince Charles, and Harry’s older brother, Prince William.
But the Daily Beast said it increasingly appears that the couple — “as is becoming a hallmark of their dealings with Harry’s family” — went ahead and gave their daughter the name before telling the queen about it. In her “Good Morning Britain” appearance, Levin said: “Harry did mention to his grandma that he was going to name his daughter after her but I bet she didn’t know it was going to be Lilibet.”
Another emerging issue is that Buckingham Palace appears to have been caught off guard by the announcement Sunday, the Times of London and other outlets reported. While news of the birth was being broadcast globally, the palace was still posting other royal news. The Sun reported there was a three-hour delay before the palace tweeted out a congratulations from the queen, Prince Charles and other family members.
But when the queen’s statement finally came, she didn’t betray any desperate unhappiness. “The Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been informed and are delighted with the news,” the tweet said.
William and his wife Kate Middleton also issued a short statement that, purposefully or not, avoided the use of Lilibet, referring to their new niece as Lili. “We are all delighted by the happy news of the arrival of baby Lili. Congratulations to Harry, Meghan and Archie,” they posted.
It remains to be seen whether Harry and Meghan will have anything further to say on their daughter’s name, or on their relationship with his family. They announced that they will going on up to 20 weeks parental leave — the number of weeks of parental leave offered to staff at their Archewell Foundation. Journalist Omid Scobie said on “Good Morning America” that the couple want to “lead by example.”
It’s not clear whether this break means they won’t be giving interviews, issuing more statements, or leaking insider news to their favorite journalists. But it has been confirmed that Harry still plans to return to the U.K. in July for the unveiling of a statue in honor of Diana, where he will see his brother William again for the first time since Philip’s funeral, The Independent reported.
