Meghan Markle says she has changed her famous last name! – Story Of The Day!

To Meghan, “Sussex” isn’t just a title attached to her marriage. It’s a label that, in her view, represents the household she and Harry built. She framed it as a family decision and, more than that, as a symbol of unity: one name for Archie, Lili, Harry, and herself. She’s echoed that idea outside the show as well, describing the name as something that holds emotional weight and feels tied to their relationship story.

The timing is part of why the change has landed so loudly. Meghan’s Netflix series is a lifestyle project—home, food, hosting, and the softer side of public image—and people are already scrutinizing it for what it “means” about her next phase. When she adds a name shift on top of a new show, it becomes instant fuel: some see it as a natural evolution, others see it as a calculated rebrand, and plenty of observers land somewhere in the middle.

It also doesn’t help that the public has been trained to treat royal names like a rulebook. In everyday life, a surname is usually a fixed thing: your legal name, your documents, your identity. In royal life, names can be fluid, situational, and sometimes strategic. Titles can function like surnames. Family names can be used or dropped depending on context. And the same person might be known by different names in different spaces—formal, professional, ceremonial, or private.

That’s exactly where the criticism comes in. Some royal watchers argue that “Sussex” is a courtesy title, not a true last name, and that Meghan’s legal surname should be “Mountbatten-Windsor.” They point out that “Sussex” is a county, not a conventional surname, and question the optics of adopting a place-based title as if it were a standard family name. Others take a more pointed angle, claiming she has little connection to Sussex as a place and therefore shouldn’t treat it as personal identity.