Meghan Markle shares pointed advice for parents on naming babies after 'row'
On the last episode in the series of her podcast, Meghan Markle talked about the pressure of naming a business - and ended up issuing advice to parents on naming the children, years after a row over one of her children's names
Meghan Markle has shared pointed advice for parents when it comes to naming their babies. In the final episode of her podcast series, Confessions Of A Female Founder, the Duchess of Sussex described the difficulties of trying to start a successful company while caring for young children.
She made the comments while expressing her admiration for podcast guest Sara Blakely, founder of the shapewear clothing company Spanx and a mother of four. During the chat, the pair discussed the pressure of choosing a name for their business, with Meghan opting for the name As Ever for her lifestyle brand. And she shared her own advice for those expecting children when it comes to names saying "Don't ask anyone's opinion".
Meghan talked about the pressure to get "everyone's approval" for a brand name and added: "You're like, 'What do you think?" And she added: "It's no different — I will say this to every woman in the world or every person in the world who's going to have a child — if you have an idea about what you are going to name that baby, you keep it so close to your heart until that baby is born and it's named. Don't ask anyone's opinion."
Prince Harry and Meghan, of course, chose the names Archie and Lilibet for their children, with their daughter's name, a tribute to the late Queen, raising eyebrows at the time. The name Lilibet was first used when Harry's late grandmother was just a toddler and unable to pronounce her own name, Elizabeth, properly.
Her grandfather King George V would affectionately call her Lilibet imitating her own attempts to say Elizabeth. The sweet nickname stuck, and she became Lilibet to her family from then on.
When Harry and Meghan's daughter was born almost four years ago, a spokesperson for the couple insisted that the duke spoke to his grandmother in advance and would not have used the name had the monarch not been supportive.
However, a palace source told the BBC that the couple had asked the late Queen about the naming of their daughter. Later, in a biography of King Charles, respected royal author Robert Hardman claimed that the late Queen was "as angry as I'd ever seen her" after the Sussexes said they had her blessing to call their daughter Lilibet.
However, in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, fellow royal writer Gyles Brandreth writes: "According to the Queen, Harry told her the Sussexes wanted to call the baby 'Lilibet' in her honour, and she accepted their choice with good grace, taking it as the compliment it was intended to be.
"Others in the family found the choice 'bewildering' and 'rather presumptuous', given that 'Lilibet' as a name had always been intimately and exclusively the Queen's. Later, the Queen said: 'I hear they're calling her Lili, which is very pretty and seems just right.'"
When it comes to their son, the Sussexes reportedly chose the name because, according to the sympathetic Finding Freedom biography of the pair, they wanted "something traditional, a name that was powerful even without a title in front of it."
His middle name is Harrison, a tribute to Harry as it means 'son of Henry' or 'son of Harry.' Lilibet's middle name is Diana, in tribute to her late grandmother, Princess Diana.
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