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The Little Prince Gets a Name: George The Little Prince Gets a Name: George
(about 5 hours later)
George Alexander Louis is the name of the world’s most famous baby. LONDON — With a haste unusual in the royal family’s handling of such matters, Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, announced Wednesday that they had named their 2-day-old son George Alexander Louis — thus setting him on a course, assuming he ascends the throne, to one day become King George VII.
Less than a day after the newborn was taken home from a hospital by Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, royal officials on Wednesday announced the name of the boy, who is third in line to the British throne. On his birth on Monday, the infant became third in line to the throne, after his grandfather Prince Charles and his father. Since Charles is 64 and William is 31, and Queen Elizabeth II appears in robust health at 87, the reign of a new King George, with all the resonance the name carries in the 1,000-year history of the British monarchy, could be decades away.
“The baby will be known as His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge,” Clarence House, the official residence of the new parents, announced in a Twitter post. The announcement from Kensington Palace, where William and Kate will make their London home, said that the infant would be formally known as Prince George of Cambridge. The title derives from the decision of Queen Elizabeth to revive the titles of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, unused since Queen Victoria’s time, and bestow them on William and Kate when they married in April 2011.
Although it has been common royal practice for the public to have to wait days, even weeks for the royal naming, the announcement came surprisingly quickly. Royal officials insisted that the couple chose the name themselves. The baby was born on Monday at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. The official naming announcement was brief, and with William, Kate and the baby having left London at lunchtime to stay with Carole and Michael Middleton, Kate’s parents, at their secluded country home west of London, the couple were unavailable for any comment on their decision. But the choice of George, at least, came as little surprise, since it had led the odds in Britain’s betting shops.
George had been a top choice with betting firms. It was among the names of former kings in the 1,000-year monarchy that people had placed bets the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would choose. Other favorites included James, Philip, Henry and Edward. Beyond its historical resonance — there have been six King Georges, and one, George III, has come down in history for his bouts of madness, and for having lost the war to keep the American colonies — George’s status as the bookies’ front-runner derived from compelling sentimental significance to the royals. Queen Elizabeth’s father, who died of lung cancer in 1952, was King George VI.
James was a popular bet because of James I, the first Stuart king. Some people saw James as a way for the royal family to perhaps send a message to the people of Scotland 14 months before they are scheduled to vote in an independence referendum. His story was captured in the Oscar-winning film “The King’s Speech,” which traced the struggles that Bertie, as he was known in the family until older brother David quit the throne as Edward VIII, confronted in overcoming a chronic stammer and a profound diffidence about his fitness to be king.
But the name George was considered the best bet because of King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. The queen, great-grandmother to the new baby, had voiced strong affection over the years for her father, who died of lung cancer in 1952 while in his 50s. He was portrayed by Colin Firth in the 2010 movie “The King’s Speech,” which won an Oscar for best picture. Though he was on the throne through World War II and won widespread admiration for his steadiness, members of his family, particularly his wife, also Queen Elizabeth, and his daughter, the present queen, are said to believe that his early death, at 56, resulted partly from the strains of a kingship that he had never wanted.
Prince William, who lost his own mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in a Paris car crash when he was 15, is said by close friends to have a deep affection for his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. She was with him and his brother, Prince Harry, when the news of their mother’s death reached the royal family at their summer retreat at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The friends said William wanted his son to be named after his great-grandfather as a token of his affection for the queen.
The naming announcement came a few hours after Queen Elizabeth had been driven to Kensington Palace to see the new baby for the first time. Royal officials said it was the first time since 1894, on the birth of the future King Edward VIII, son of King George V and Queen Mary, in the twilight of Queen Victoria’s reign, that a reigning monarch had met a great-grandchild born in the line of direct succession to the throne.
Friends of Kate’s said that the choice of Alexander for a second name — a name not common among the royals — reflected her strong preference. But the third name, Louis, royal officials said, reflected another strong royal sentiment, the fondness of Prince Charles for Lord Louis Mountbatten, who as an admiral led Britain’s armed forces.
He was assassinated by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1979. Biographers of Prince Charles, whose boyhood was marked by a distant relationship with his parents, have said that he regarded Lord Mountbatten as a surrogate father.