When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry on May 19, 2018, her entire life changed. She went from a girl from California/actress/wellness guru/blogger into a senior member of the British Royal Family.
One of the more visible things that changed was Meghan’s name itself. The morning of May 19, 2018 she woke up as Rachel Meghan Markle, and after exchanging vows with her Prince Charming (also known as His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales), she became HRH the Duchess of Sussex, or just “Meghan”.
So what do we call her now? There will inevitably be questions about which name those in the media – and this blog in particular – use to refer to Meghan. Questions about the choice of her name in media coverage can be quite sensitive. Many will note that staunch supporters of tradition and the monarchy become upset when the Duchess of Cambridge is referred to by her maiden name, Kate Middleton, whereas reporters and bloggers often use her maiden name when referring to her in articles. We wanted to clarify our position on Meghan’s name used at Meghan’s Mirror in hopes of dispelling any confusion that may arise from it.
Meghan’s Mirror was started in 2016, before the announcement of a royal relationship, and well before the knowledge of her title of HRH The Duchess of Sussex, Countess Dumbarton, Baroness Kilkeel. We covered the fashion of Meghan Markle and never had any reason to call her anything other than Meghan Markle. Starting from today (May 19, 2018), we will provide and use her new title in our content (for example, in event articles where we cover Meghan and Harry we would refer to them as the “Duke and Duchess of Sussex”), however we will still continue to use just “Meghan” or “Meghan Markle” in various other contexts (for example, in our image, post or product details)
Why would we continue to use Meghan Markle? There are several reasons why we are making this choice.
- As we mentioned above, Meghan is most well-known to the world as Meghan Markle. She spent years building her career and persona based on her name, and there are hundreds of thousands of media interviews, commentaries and articles written about Meghan Markle already in existence. With the internet being as pervasive as it is in daily life, those articles will simply not disappear or all be amended to “Duchess Meghan” on May 20th. Think only of our website alone to grasp the size of the issue; we have covered Meghan Markle’s style since 2016 and have years worth of archives built with the use of “Meghan Markle”.
- Having spent as much time studying and researching Meghan as we have, we know several things to be true about her. One is that she is a huge advocate and passionate believer in women’s empowerment and rights. Two, she also wholeheartedly believes that one needs to be comfortable and confident in who they are – learning to love themselves – before they look to find happiness and love from others. Both of these qualities affirm our belief that Meghan is a strong, confident woman who is very much self-assured. Meghan would not be bothered by being called “Meghan Markle” as that name represents the woman she was so proud to have grown into, the woman she is and most importantly, the strong, confident woman she will continue to be.
- Being familiar with Search-Engine Optimization (SEO) and keywords (which, if you don’t know, is how websites use specific words to gain traffic to their sites through the use of frequently used keywords that people type into Google), the search term “Meghan Markle” will remain a popular manner in which people search for content related to Meghan and a popular way for websites like ours to continue growing. Things like SEO need to be taken into account when a media outlet is writing stories or they will risk having fewer readers, and conversely, possibly smaller profits which will not allow them to keep providing the great coverage that they do. If you are curious, try googling “Kate Middleton” versus “Duchess of Cambridge” to get a sense of what we’re referring to. (“Kate Middleton” has 1.4 Million results, whereas “Duchess of Cambridge” has 791,000 results. In fact, “Princess Kate”, a title that Kate will never even occupy, has 3.1 Million!)
- We recognize that this is a choice that all sites and outlets will have to make on their own – and not one that will be permanently set in stone. If Meghan comes out and one day says “I wish people would stop calling me Meghan Markle in news articles”, we’d obviously be willing to take a look at our choice.
There will be people who may be offended by our choice, and some who may find it disrespectful of Meghan and her position. To those people, please rest assured that we know Meghan’s name and formal title – and have the utmost respect for it.
It boils down to the fact that we at Meghan’s Mirror, like so many of our readers who have joined us on the journey, have gotten to know her as Meghan Markle. We got to discover her style, her passions and the incredible woman behind the impossibly perfect persona and fall in love with the girl we can all call Meghan.
