There are only a handful of occasions each year where we get to see Prince George out in public with his parents and Trooping the Colour is arguably the most high profile of these. The 12-year-old usually travels with his mum and siblings by carriage before joining the rest of the Royal Family on the Buckingham Palace balcony to watch the RAF flypast.
Although the entire parade is televised, it’s impossible to make out most of what the royal say to each other and this is when lip-readers’ skills are put to the test. According to reports, lip-reading expert Jeremy Freeman spotted Prince George turning to Kate and calling her "Momma" at Trooping the Colour back in 2022.
This adorable moniker is slightly different to "Mummy", which we’ve heard Charlotte call the Princess of Wales in the past. In a special twist, Momma/Mama is also a direct equivalent to what the Wales kids famously call Prince William - Papa.
George, Charlotte and Louis favour this more traditional form over ‘Dad’ and they aren’t the only ones. King Charles is "Pa" to both of his sons and "Papa" and "Mama" seem like the perfect partnership of names for the Prince and Princess of Wales now their children are a bit older.
Whilst George’s name for Kate had to be deciphered, we heard her pet name for Louis very distinctly in a clip that gathered attention on social media in 2023. The mum-of-three addressed her youngest son as "Lou-Bugs" as she told him to put a stick in the fire after melting marshmallows to make S’mores.
Meanwhile, Prince William openly referred to Charlotte as "Mignonette" in a video showing the family’s visit to see Kate’s Back to Nature Garden at RHS Chelsea in 2019. Whether or not these sweet nicknames have stuck, we might never know, but they give an insight into their bonds at a specific moment in time in any case.
At least some of the Royal Family’s childhood names were carried through to adulthood, like the late Queen Elizabeth’s moniker "Lilibet". Prince Philip called her by this affectionate nickname and now it lives on as the first name of their great-granddaughter Princess Lilibet.
Prince George’s use of "Momma" for Kate will likely stand the test of time too and the same could be true of his own nickname.
For years now it’s been suggested that the Prince and Princess of Wales started calling their son "Tips" after friends dubbed him PG for Prince George. PG Tips is a well-known brand of tea in the UK and given that we’re known as a nation of tea-drinkers, it seems quite apt that George was known as "Tips". Before he was born, though, the Waleses are said to have lovingly referred to him as "our little grape".
Kate had also been very keen on another name for a son initially, with royal expert Katie Nicholl writing in 2013 that the Princess “apparently suspected it was a boy and had set her heart on the name Alexander”. In the end, she and Prince William decided upon George Alexander Louis for their firstborn and it suits him perfectly.
