ROYALS

What Do We Call Prince Harry Once He’s No Longer a Royal?

Well, for starters, he wants us to drop “Prince” from his name.

Feb. 26, 2020

Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

The revocation of Prince Harry‘s royal title is well under way.

Before Prince Harry officially steps down as a senior royal on March 31, he has arrived in the United Kingdom for a series of farewell public engagements.

The soon-to-be former royal traveled to Scotland for a sustainability conference that he organized for Travelyst, a sustainable tourism partnership program he launched with Visa, TripAdvisor, and some other travel companies last year, right around the time he and his wife caught some flak for flying in a private jet. (Don’t worry, he took the train from London to Edinburgh.) There, he implored the audience to refer to him informally, answering the question of what to call him once he’s no longer a royal, which surely has been on everyone’s mind.

“Just call me Harry,” he said to the conference attendees.

Technically, he and Meghan Markle can still be referred to as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for now. There’s no word yet on whether the Duchess will ask to just be called Meghan by the general public, though surely she will follow suit, since that’s kind of what’s already been happening anyway.

Meghan and Harry’s official branding, SussexRoyal, will also change once they step down from their royal duties and drop their titles. Per their agreement and negotiations with the Queen, they will remove the word “Royal” from everything pertaining to their brand, including their Instagram handle, @SussexRoyal, and their forthcoming nonprofit charity organization, which had been registered under the name SussexRoyal.

It is also worth noting that technically Harry does not have a last name. None of the royals do, actually. King George V insisted that Windsor be used as the family’s surname (because of Windsor Castle) beginning in 1917, but Harry’s full legal name is just Henry Charles Albert David. If he does want a last name, he could probably adopt Mountbatten-Windsor, which is the surname given to his son, Archie. (Mountbatten comes from Prince Philip’s side of the family.)

So, if the former Party Prince wants to just be called “Harry,” it shouldn’t be an issue. Plenty of public figures go by just one name—Cher, Madonna, Rihanna, to name a few. Harry could even go by a symbol like Prince if he wanted to, though that might get confusing.