When you hear the name Elizabeth II, what do you think of? We think, “For there to be a second, there has to be a first.” Voila! We have on our minds Queen Elizabeth I, a queen who ruled hundreds of years ago—from 1558 to 1603. No one alive remembers her, of course. But in a way, she lives on through her eventual successor Queen Elizabeth II. Just like every baby born in the British royal line, Elizabeth II got a name full of history.

How To Name a Royal Baby:

• Choose more than one. Each royal gets more than one name. When a new royal takes the throne, he or she gets to decide which name to be known by. What would it be like to be King Edward VIII as a boy? Imagine your mom yelling, “Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, take out the garbage!!!”
  Later royals have shortened this naming trend. The children of Prince William and Princess Kate have two middle names apiece.
• Choose names from historical predecessors (people who came before) or ancestors (relatives who came before). (A few favorites: Elizabeth, Mary, Diana, William, George, Phillip, Arthur) Queen Elizabeth II’s full name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. She’s named after her mom (Elizabeth the Queen Mother), her grandmother (Queen Mary), and her great grandmother (Queen Alexandra). Windsor is her last name.
• Tack on a title. Some royal babies also need a title to show where they fit in the family and in the nation. Queen Elizabeth’s great grandson, Louis, was born in 2018. He is a prince. Someday, his father will be King of England. So at birth, this little baby got this whopping moniker: His Royal Highness Prince Louis of Cambridge.