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When Meghan Markle was pregnant with her first child Archie, she and Prince Harry were apparently torn about what they were going to name him.
The couple attended the Invictus Games in The Hague, Netherlands over the weekend where Meghan stopped by a reading session for children. During the event, the royal chatted with another parent who was there with her son, Harrison. Sherry McBain, who is a nursing officer in the Royal Air Force and a competitor in this year’s games, told the PA news agency that her wife Mandy was that woman and she realized during their chat that she and Meghan have something in common. “[Meghan] was like ‘Harrison, that’s Archie’s middle name’, and Mandy was like ‘Yeah, I know,’” McBain explained. “They were just having a chat because Harry and Meghan couldn’t decide between Archie and Harrison for the first name.”
She went on to describe the royal as “really open” and “really friendly,” adding that their son Harrison was “just over the moon that a princess has read him a story, so that went down really well with all the U.K. children.” The child also got to show off his artwork to the royal, handing her a picture he drew of a tram. “I don’t think it quite looked like a tram, so she was very gracious and said that’s a brilliant tram, so he was delighted,” McBain concluded.
Harry and Meghan also clearly had their two young children on their minds during the games as the Duke told the crowd gathered at the event’s opening ceremony, “When I talk to my son Archie about what he wants to be when he grows up, some days it’s an astronaut, other days it’s a pilot — a helicopter pilot obviously — or Kwazii from Octonauts.” The royal continued, “But what I remind him is that no matter what you want to be when you grow up, it’s your character that matters most, and nothing would make his mum and me prouder than to see him have the character of what we see before us today.”
The couple’s eldest, whose full name is Archibald Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, is thought to be named after Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll of Scotland who was also an ancestor of Harry’s mother Princess Diana. Meghan is also a distant relative of Benjamin Harrison, a former U.S. President, meaning their son’s name symbolically unites the U.S. and U.K. Despite his parents being the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Archie has no formal title, and is referred to simply as Master Archie. The baby is seventh in line to the throne, and Queen Elizabeth’s eighth great-grandchild.
Originally published in Vanityfair.com
