Meghan Markle has clarified her full legal name just months after first revealing her new surname, ending speculation about how she and Prince Harry present themselves as a family.
The Duchess of Sussex, whose second season of her Netflix show With Love, Meghan was released today (26 August), appeared on YouTube’s The Circle with Emily Chang where she spoke candidly about her life, identity, and the meaning of her family name.
During the conversation, Meghan admitted that in earlier years she often felt “inauthentic” as a royal. “It was different several years ago when I couldn’t be as vocal and I had to wear nude pantyhose all the time. Let’s be honest, that was not very myself,” she said. “I hadn’t seen pantyhose since movies in the 80s when they came in the little egg. That felt a little bit inauthentic. And that’s a silly example. But it is an example of when you’re able to dress the way you want to dress and you are able to say the things you want to say that are true and be able to show up in a space that is really organically and authentically, that’s being comfortable in your own skin. Of course, I have had different chapters in my life. But right now I don’t feel I need to prove anything.”
The discussion also turned to Meghan’s name, a topic that has generated wide attention since she first opened up about it earlier this year in the debut season of With Love, Meghan. Speaking then to her friend, actress Mindy Kaling, Meghan explained how important it had become for her family to share the same surname. “It’s so funny you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know I’m Sussex now,” she told Kaling. “You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children.’ I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me but it just means so much to go, ‘This is OUR family name. Our little family name.’”
She added that although she had changed her name after marrying Prince Harry in 2018, the concept of a surname was complicated by the British aristocratic system. “Well, when I got married, I changed my name. But it is a complicated one for people to understand because a last name is not typical in that construct,” she explained.
Pressed by host Emily Chang on whether “Sussex” was in fact her legal last name, Meghan clarified: “It’s not, but it’s used loosely or roughly rather. It sounds so silly to say and I get it ’cos I’m American and then I went there and I started to understand, then you come back and as an American, you go ‘I’m so confused’. It’s a dukedom — and that’s the truth of it. But at the end of the day, yes, my legal name is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, but Sussex works for us as our family name and it is the name we share with our children. But yes, since we’ve been married that’s what I’ve been called.”
With this confirmation, Meghan has put an end to months of online chatter about her identity, affirming that while her legal name remains Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, she and Harry embrace “Sussex” as the name that defines their life as a family of four.