Harry and Meghan 'refused to use' Prince Archie's royal title because word in it 'bothered them'

Prince William and Kate Middleton's three kids, George, Charlotte and Louis, can expect to all hold senior royal titles one day but the same can not be said for many of the late Queen's other great-grandchildren.

This was the case for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's children, Archie and Lilibet, until the couple made an announcement in March 2023 that they did not want to deny their kids of their "birth right" and changed the way the youngsters were styled.

From that moment on, Archie became Prince Archie of Sussex but there is another title he would have been granted if his parents had not turned it down.

When Harry and Meghan wed in 2018, the late monarch made the couple the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Earl and Countess of Dumbarton and the Baron and Baroness Kilkeel.

Due to royal tradition, Archie was entitled to be styled as the Earl of Dumbarton as it is the subsidiary style of his father’s official title, OK! reports.

However, The Telegraph reports that the Sussexes' dismissed this as they didn't want their son to be known by a title that had the word 'dumb' in it.

The report says: "They didn’t like the idea of Archie being called the Earl of Dumbarton because it began with the word ‘dumb’ [and] they were worried about how that might look."

A second source claims that it wasn't just Meghan who had concerns about it as it "also bothered Harry".

Prince Archie was welcomed into the world on May 6, 2019 at the Portland Hospital in London.

He made his first public appearance in his parents' arms in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle in front of a select number of photographers.

The five-year-old was initially styled as Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor but this all changed when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that their son would be known as Prince Archie going forward as they didn't want to deny him and his younger sister, Princess Lilibet, of their "birth right".

Both of the Sussexes' children are entitled to use princely titles as they are the grandchildren of King Charles, which were the rules set out by King George V in the 1917 Letters Patent.

While he has spent the majority of his life so far in the US, Prince Archie did get an early taste of royal life as he joined Harry and Meghan on a tour of South Africa when he was less than a year old and was snapped meeting Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The young prince spent his first Christmas with his parents in Canada and remained there while his parents returned to the UK and announced just days later that they were quitting the Royal Family.

After their shock exit from the Firm, the Sussexes' soon made a home in Montecito, California and later welcomed their daughter, Princess Lilibet Diana on 4 June, 2021.

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