{"id":772752,"date":"2026-02-18T14:13:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/772752\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:13:19","slug":"what-kate-middleton-almost-named-prince-george","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/772752\/","title":{"rendered":"What Kate Middleton Almost Named Prince George"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul data-node-id=\"0\" class=\"css-kw9lqy emevuu60\">\n<li data-node-id=\"0.0\">Kate Middleton had her &#8220;heart set&#8221; on a completely different name for her eldest son, Prince George.<\/li>\n<li data-node-id=\"0.1\">Prince William and Kate Middleton &#8220;spent hours&#8221; looking into names with the help of a book.<\/li>\n<li data-node-id=\"0.2\">Prince George&#8217;s full name has a very specific royal meaning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"2\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">Welp, turns out Prince George almost wasn&#8217;t named Prince George. <\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"3\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">As a reminder, Kate Middleton and Prince William&#8217;s eldest child&#8217;s full name is, ahem, <strong data-node-id=\"3.1\">George Alexander Louis<\/strong>. But apparently Kate wanted to go with something totally different.<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"4\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">According to royal editor Russell Myers in William and Catherine, The Monarchy&#8217;s New Era: The Inside Story (per <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/kate-middleton-heart-set-different-name-prince-george-11907821\" target=\"_blank\" data-vars-ga-outbound-link=\"https:\/\/people.com\/kate-middleton-heart-set-different-name-prince-george-11907821\" data-vars-ga-ux-element=\"Hyperlink\" data-vars-ga-call-to-action=\"People\" data-node-id=\"4.5.0\" class=\"body-link css-ohbdae emevuu60\" rel=\"noopener\">People<\/a>), Will and Kate  &#8220;spent hours&#8221; researching names, and Kate initially wanted Alexander or Alexandra.<\/p>\n<p><img draggable=\"true\" alt=\"topshot britain war wwi history royals\" title=\"TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-WAR-WWI-HISTORY-ROYALS\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"5088\" height=\"3392\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;width:100%;height:auto;\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/britains-catherine-princess-of-wales-and-britains-prince-news-photo-1771420829.pjpeg.jpeg\" class=\"css-0 e1g79fud0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jack Taylor\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"8\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">&#8220;Catherine had her heart set on Alexander for a boy or Alexandra (also Queen Elizabeth&#8217;s middle name) for a girl. William had privately voiced his preference for having a girl, and was keen to incorporate a tribute to his late mother, most likely in the form of a middle name,&#8221; Myers explains. &#8220;The couple had been given a book of baby names by a close friend, which they spent hours thumbing through \u2014 they often ended up in fits of laughter after one or the other had presented a more left-field suggestion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"9\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">When George was born, <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/royals\/kate-and-william-name-prince-george-after-these-royals\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-vars-ga-outbound-link=\"https:\/\/people.com\/royals\/kate-and-william-name-prince-george-after-these-royals\/\" data-vars-ga-ux-element=\"Hyperlink\" data-vars-ga-call-to-action=\"People\" data-node-id=\"9.1.0\" class=\"body-link css-ohbdae emevuu60\" rel=\"noopener\">People<\/a> reported that his first name was a tribute to Queen Elizabeth&#8217;s father, George VI. Meanwhile, Alexander is a shoutout to the Queen herself (her middle name was Alexandra). As for Louis, it was considered a tribute to the Queen&#8217;s husband Prince Philip (whose grandfather was named Prince Louis) and Earl Louis Mountbatten.<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"10\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">At the time of Prince George&#8217;s birth, royal biographer Christopher Warwick told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/442295\/the-history-behind-prince-george-s-regal-name\" target=\"_blank\" data-vars-ga-outbound-link=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/442295\/the-history-behind-prince-george-s-regal-name\" data-vars-ga-ux-element=\"Hyperlink\" data-vars-ga-call-to-action=\"E! News\" data-node-id=\"10.1\" class=\"body-link css-ohbdae emevuu60\" rel=\"noopener\">E! News<\/a> &#8220;With George we have a traditional, classic name with historical connotations. It might not be too imaginative, but it isn&#8217;t too surprising. In a royal context it is a very appropriate and significant name because it means that maybe one day in the dim and distant future this child would become George VII.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Related Story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate Middleton had her &#8220;heart set&#8221; on a completely different name for her eldest son, Prince George. Prince&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[223518,1380,225930,1331,1381,5105,7710,519,448,225929,225931],"class_list":{"0":"post-772752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-collection-royal-family","9":"tag-content-type-news","10":"tag-contentid-c887dda3-8cc8-4e12-b6fa-9a86df5b4a3a","11":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","12":"tag-locale-us","13":"tag-royal","14":"tag-royal-families","15":"tag-royal-family","16":"tag-royals","17":"tag-shorttitle-kate-middleton-wanted-a-different-name-for-george","18":"tag-subsection-celebs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116092050234138865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}