The Royals Attempted to Get Kate Middleton to Change Her Name for the Most Ridiculous Reason

Kate Middleton goes by a lot of names: The Princess of Wales, Catherine, and (obviously) Kate! But once upon a time, the royal family tried to make the future Queen change her name entirely, an ask that left Prince William absolutely “fuming.”The whole name thing was first brought up by Prince Harry back during the publication of his memoir, Spare. He wrote, “I remembered the time [Charles] 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, Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested.”Royal expert and author Christopher Andersen then confirmed Harry’s story, writing in his book Kate! The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen that “Charles and Camilla each had a royal monogram that consisted of interlocking C’s beneath a crown, and they expressed concern that a third royal cypher with a C was overkill. Would Kate mind if she changed the spelling of her full name from ‘Catherine’ to ‘Katherine.’”Add Cosmopolitan as a preferred source in your Google search results.Use your Google account to add this to your settings.He noted that William was extremely upset, writing “Offended by yet another command from on high essentially aimed at placating Camilla, a fuming William replied on his wife’s behalf. The request was nothing less than ‘insulting,’ he told his father, not only to Kate but to her entire family.”Asking a person to change their name because there are “too many Cs” in the family is...a lot! And Andersen told Fox News a couple weeks ago that “The entire nature of Charles and Camilla’s request—that Catherine was adding too many C’s to the royal crests—shows just how much image and branding means to members of the royal family. The monarchy really is a giant game of one-upmanship.”Obviously, no one is sitting around thinking about royal cyphers having too many Cs (if you are, apologies), so think maybe The Firm, um, overreacted on this one.