what is queen elizabeths last name
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what is queen elizabeth last name,
Had Queen Elizabeth been born just about a decade earlier, her last name might very well have been different. However, in 1917 due to tensions related to World War I, the family changed the name of the Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the House of Windsor.
Queen Elizabeth. Liz. Her Majesty. British monarch. Lilibet.: The queen has more names than P.Diddy (or is it Sean Combs now?) but we recently realized that we didn’t know the 95-year-old’s full name. Or even just her last name, for that matter. So, we did some digging and it turns out that there’s way more that goes into her official moniker—Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor—than we thought.
Let’s start with the easy stuff. Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of Prince Albert (George VI) and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Hence, her first name. Liz was given her middle name, “Alexandra,” after George VI’s mother, who had passed shortly before her birth, and “Mary” after her paternal grandmother, Mary of Teck.
So, where does “Windsor“ come from? According to the official website of the royal family, before 1917, members of the family had no surname “but only the name of the House or dynasty to which they belonged.”
what is queen elizabeths last name
King George VI was born in 1895, as a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and he and his family used the name up until 1917, when the royal House was changed to the House of Windsor. (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Saxe-Coburg-Gotha would have had quite the ring to it, though.)
Per the website, George specifically adopted “Windsor,“ not only as the name of the House but also as the surname of his family, a decision that came as a result of anti-German feelings during the First World War. After her accession in 1952, Elizabeth carried on the tradition.
It’s also important to note how the surname Mountbatten-Windsor (shared by Archie Harrison and Lilibet Diana) came to be. In 1960, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip decided they wanted their direct descendants to take both of their family names “Mountbatten-Windsor,” as a way to also honor Philip. Other male-line descendants of King George V have continued to use the surname Windsor.
“It was therefore declared in the Privy Council that The Queen’s descendants, other than those with the style of Royal Highness and the title of Prince/Princess, or female descendants who marry, would carry the name of Mountbatten-Windsor,” the site continues. This explains why Harry, William and Prince George, Charlotte and Louis, do not share the surname (or any surname for that matter).
As a result Queen Elizabeth’s last name is Windsor, but we’ll just call her Liz.
What is the Royal Family’s last name?
The royal family’s naming practice may seem complicated, but the reason behind it is relatively simple: The royals are typically so well known that they don’t need a last name to be recognized. “Members of the Royal Family can be known both by the name of the Royal house,
and by a surname, which are not always the same,” the official royal website reads. “And often they do not use a surname at all.”
This means that Prince Harry’s full name could technically be Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor and that Markle could have become Rachel Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor following their royal wedding. However, considering last names are typically only used by members of the royal family without a title,
you don’t need to worry about tacking the hyphenated surname onto Harry and Meghan’s names.
Members of the Royal Family can also use a last name from their family’s official title. For example,
Prince Harry and Prince William were known at school and in the military as Harry Wales and William Wales, a surname that derived from their father’s official title. Prince George, meanwhile, has taken the surname Cambridge at school, from his father’s title as Duke of Cambridge.
Basically, when in doubt about how to refer to a member of the royal family,
first names and titles are the safe way to go.
Early life
Elizabeth was the elder daughter of Prince Albert, duke of York, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. As the child of a younger son of King George V, the young Elizabeth had little prospect of acceding to the throne until her uncle, Edward VIII (afterward duke of Windsor), abdicated in her father’s favour on December 11, 1936, at which time her father became King George VI and she became heir presumptive.
The princess’s education was supervised by her mother, who entrusted her daughters to a governess, Marion Crawford; the princess was also grounded in history by C.H.K. Marten, afterward provost of Eton College, and had instruction from visiting teachers in music and languages. During World War II she and her sister, Princess Margaret Rose, perforce spent much of their time safely away from the London blitz and separated from their parents, living mostly at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, and Windsor Castle.
Early in 1947 Princess Elizabeth went with the king and queen to South Africa. After her return there was an announcement of her betrothal to her distant cousin Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten of the Royal Navy, formerly Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. The marriage took place in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. On the eve of the wedding her father, the king, conferred upon the bridegroom the titles of duke of Edinburgh, earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. They took residence at Clarence House in London. Their first child, Prince Charles (Charles Philip Arthur George), was born November 14, 1948, at Buckingham Palace.
Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation
With her father’s health declining in 1951, Elizabeth stepped in for him at various state functions. After spending that Christmas with the royal family,
Elizabeth and Philip left on a tour of Australia and New Zealand, making a stopover in Kenya en route.
They were in Kenya on February 6, 1952,
when King George VI succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 56, and his 25-year-old daughter became the sixth woman in history to ascend to the British throne. Her formal coronation as Queen Elizabeth II took place on June 2,
1953, in Westminster Abbey.
In the first decade of her reign, Elizabeth settled into her role as queen, developing a close bond with Prime Minister Winston Churchill (the first of 13 prime ministers she would work with during her reign), weathering a foreign affairs disaster in the Suez Crisis of 1956 and making numerous state trips abroad.
In response to pointed criticism in the press, the queen embraced steps to modernize her own image and that of the monarchy, including televising her annual Christmas broadcast for the first time in 1957.
Elizabeth and Philip had two more children, Andrew (born 1960) and Edward (born 1964). In 1968, Charles was formally invested as the Prince of Wales, marking his coming of age and the beginning of what would be a long period as king-in-waiting.
Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, marking her 25 years on the throne, proved a bright spot in an era of economic struggles. Always a vigorous traveler,
she kept a punishing schedule to mark the occasion, traveling some 56,000 miles around the Commonwealth, including the island nations Fiji and Tonga,
New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the British West Indies and Canada.
Reign
Elizabeth’s long and mainly peaceful reign has been marked by vast changes in her people’s lives, in her country’s power, how Britain is viewed abroad and how the monarchy is regarded and portrayed. As a constitutional monarch, Elizabeth does not weigh in on political matters, nor does she reveal her political views. However, she confers regularly with her prime ministers.
When Elizabeth became queen, post-war Britain still had a substantial empire, dominions and dependencies. However, during the 1950s and 1960s,
many of these possessions achieved independence and the British Empire evolved into the Commonwealth of Nations. Elizabeth II has thus made visits to other countries as head of the Commonwealth and a representative of Britain,
including a groundbreaking trip to Germany in 1965. She became the first British monarch to make a state visit there in more than five decades.
Reign
During the 1970s and 1980s, Elizabeth continued to travel extensively. In 1973 she attended the Commonwealth Conference in Ottawa, Canada,
and in 1976 traveled to the United States for the 200th anniversary celebration of America’s independence from Britain. More than a week later she was in Montreal,
Canada, to open the Summer Olympics. In 1979, she traveled to Kuwait,
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, which garnered international attention and widespread respect.
In 2011, Elizabeth showed that the crown still had symbolic and diplomatic power when she became the first British monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland since 1911 (when all of Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom).
