Meghan Markle has made it clear that she no longer wants to be called by her maiden name.
Instead, she prefers to be referred to as Meghan Sussex, a preference she revealed in the second episode of her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan.
During a casual conversation with actress Mindy Kaling, the tone shifted when Kaling referred to her as “Meghan Markle.”
Meghan, who had been chopping cucumbers, paused briefly before saying, “It’s so funny, too, that you keep calling me Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now.” There was a brief moment of awkwardness as Kaling, surprised, quickly replied, “Well, now I know—and I love it.”
Meghan then explained why she prefers the Sussex name, emphasizing how important it is to share a surname with her children. “When you have kids, you go, ‘I share my name with my children, and that feels so… I didn’t know how meaningful that would be to me. It just means so much, to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name.’”
Her decision to adopt the Sussex name highlights her continued connection to her royal title, despite ongoing calls from critics for her to relinquish it.
Meghan and Prince Harry were granted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles by Queen Elizabeth II upon their marriage in 2018, and their children, Archie and Lilibet, also carry the Sussex surname.
While Meghan doesn’t address her estrangement from the royal family in the episode, her choice to use the Sussex name comes at a time of continued tension. Notably, she doesn’t mention her brother-in-law, Prince William, with whom she and Harry have ongoing conflicts.
Meghan’s insistence on using her preferred name also draws parallels to Kate Middleton, who has made efforts to be called Catherine, a change that has met with mixed results.
The question remains: Will “Meghan Sussex” become widely accepted, or will people continue to refer to her by the name she became famous with?
