Prince Harry Considers Changing His Famous Surname – And Taking Late Mother Diana’s

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Baila Eve ZismanJune 4, 2025, 6:48 pmHome Featured, News >

Prince Harry is considering changing his family’s surname.

Prince Harry has spoken with his uncle Charles Spencer about taking his late mother, Princess Diana’s, surname – trading out “Mountbatten-Windsor,” the surname used by his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, for “Spencer.”

Prince Harry and his uncle, the 9th Earl Spencer, who is the younger brother of the late Princess Diana, allegedly discussed the possible name trade-out, but Prince Harry was informed that the legal challenges would be too difficult.

A source told The Daily Mail, “They had a very amicable conversation and Spencer advised him against taking such a step.”

Although both Archie and Lilibet’s birth certificates list ‘Mountbatten-Windsor’ as their surnames, the family uses “Sussex” as their last name. In an interview with People, Meghan Markle explained what “Sussex” has come to represent: “It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognized how meaningful that would be to me until we had children…I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.”

Mountbatten-Windsor is the British royal family’s official surname used by some descendants of the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. From Philip’s side, ‘Mountbatten’ was the surname the Greek prince adopted when he became a British citizen in 1947 and joined the Royal Navy. ‘Windsor’ was adopted by King George V as the British royal surname in 1917. In 1960, the Queen and Philip declared Mountbatten-Windsor to be the surname of their direct descendants.

Sources have speculated that dropping the surname would be intended as a slight toward King Charles. The divide between Prince Harry and his father shows no signs of narrowing, following Prince Harry and Markle leaving the royal family in 2020. The state-funded security that the couple sub-sequentially lost has remained a point of tension as Prince Harry has made it clear he does not intend to bring his family to the U.K. without that high-end security in place, calling it critical.