When Kate Middleton married Prince William at Westminster Abbey fifteen years ago, the late Queen Elizabeth II bestowed special new titles to the newlyweds: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Earl and Countess of Strathearn, and Baron and Baronness of Carrickfergus. A new royal biography claims that Prince Charles and Queen Camilla also requested an unusual name change when Princess Kate joined the family, which Prince Harry mentioned in his memoir, Spare, three years ago.
According to royal biographer Christopher Andersen, author of the upcoming book Kate! The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen, Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall (as they were known at the time) had a royal monogram of two interlocking C’s beneath a coronet. The future King and Queen felt that another C monogram “was overkill,” and asked the young Kate Middleton to change her name.
The story sounds fairly outlandish, but Prince Harry revealed this bizarre request in his 2023 memoir, Spare. “I remembered the time [Prince Charles, Harry’s father] and Camilla wanted Kate to change the spelling of her name, because there were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above,” Harry wrote. “Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested. I wondered now what came of that suggestion.”
Andersen recounts the same request: “Catherine” was asked to change her name to “Katherine,” which Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, felt was a logical progression since the world knew her as “Kate.” Princess Kate was reportedly “offended” by the suggestion, and Prince William was left “fuming.” Prince William called the request “insulting, not only to Kate but to her entire family,” referring to the Middleton family, to whom he remains very close.
In the years since their marriage, their Kensington Palace team has repeatedly confirmed that Catherine, the Princess of Wales, wishes to be called Catherine—although for many people around the world, she will always be Kate.
