Princess Kate? Princess Anne? Princess Diana?

[BradfordGirl]

Why is it viewed by so many as disrespectful to refer to Kate as Princess Kate, and yet talking about Princess Anne or Princess Diana is seen as normal and acceptable?

Agree with Lady Diana - my family in Italy called her that. I just think it takes time to get used to a new name (sometimes decades!).

In the US they call her Princess Kate and Meghan is referred to as Duchess Meghan (which sounds peculiar to my ears).

And yet it is fine to call "Princess Michael of Kent" just that Prince Michael of Kent's wife Marie-Christine.

Although I would rather she were stripped of the title, nasty racist that she is.

Before her marriage, the press referred to Diana as Lady Di/Diana, so you can see it was an easy (if erroneous) slip to Princess Di/Diana when she married.

A friends mum was called Kay as her name is Catherine. I did think it was odd because "Kay" has no sound/letter connections with her name at all.

Lady Colin Campbell, has happily continued to use the formal title bestowed upon her marriage to Lord Colin Campbell, brief though it was.

Not only are Princess Kate and Princess Diana incorrect, let us not forget that - from 2005 - Camilla's correct title was HRH The Princess of Wales. However, for obvious reasons, she chose to use one of her subsidiary titles. All 3 women take their status from their husbands. This follows long-standing convention that says that when Jane Smith marries David Jones she becomes Mrs David Jones - it's just that this has dropped out of common usage in the last 30 years.
Whereas Princess Anne (more accurately HRH The Princess Royal) is a princess in her own right, since birth.

Princess Kate and Duchess Meghan makes my teeth itch!

I know Cate is an accepted spelling too. But I’m fairly certain that Kate is the conventional spelling (although as pp said, both spellings would likely have been used, in some cases interchangeably for the same individual, back in the day). In any case it’s not a big deal. I only meant it’d look a bit wrong to me!

Philip relinguished his foreign titles when he got engaged, and was given the British title of HRH, Duke of Edinburgh on marriage. He didn't become a British Prince until 1957.

She's officially called princess Catherine, but I think William calls her Kate?

Was it possible for Elizabeth to make him a Prince on their marriage when she was not the Sovereign at the time? Wouldn’t her father, the King, have had to do it?

No, she’s definitely not officially called Princess Catherine.

Charles does call her Catherine though.

Ok that makes sense! I thought they’d have at least got a duke or an earl added into their names?

In the case of Princess Margaret, her husband to be was given a title, but in more modern times I suspect this would be refused, even if offered. Neither of Anne's husbands have been given a title and Anne refused titles for her children too.

Prince Philip didn’t become a prince until Queen Elizabeth became queen, isn’t that right? And it’s only because he couldn’t be King Consort?
Prince Philip was a Prince in his own right before he married the queen. He was a prince of Greece (and Denmark?)
He was given the title of Duke when he married.

@Roseberry1 I can see that happening if they started off with shortening Catherine to Kate, then Kate to Kay (or K - similar to Harry and Meghan referring to each other as H and M).

Catherine to Kitty I guess comes from Catherine to Cat, then Kitty as in kitten or little cat.

The reason for the ‘and Denmark’ is because after the Greeks deposed their King in the 1800s the Greek National Assembly elected a Danish Prince to become their new King. He reigned for 50 years, as George I of The Hellenes. So the Greek Royal Family had (has) very close links to Denmark. IIRC Prince Philip actually considered himself Danish (although admittedly I might be misremembering).

Catherine's who are "kat" seem to spell it will a k too when Cat would seem less odd in the same way Kate seems less odd than Cate.

None of this matters by the way 😁 I'm just musing over letter/name connections.

Oddly though, Caitlyn spelt with a C or Kaitlyn spelt with a K are both really normal spellings!

Why did Diana get called Diana, Princess of Wales after she divorced?

did the royal family authorise this or was it just the media that called her that? Legally she was no longer the Princess of Wales when she divorced

That was on the Royal Household’s authorisation and was her official title. She was the ex wife of the future King, and the mother of a future King. It reflected her status in that regard.

If Charles and Camilla had married whilst Diana was still alive, would Diana still be known as Diana, Princess of Wales given that Camilla would be HRH The Princess of Wales?

I do remember there was a lot of discussion about what she would be called after the divorce. I think Fergie is also still Duchess of York.

I think the papers haven't really gotten used to calling William and Kate Prince and Princess of Wales yet. I suppose they think it will be confusing.

I think it was a half way house to appease popular opinion, acknowledge her status as the mother of the future king and allow her to retain a title, having lost HRH status. Let's not forget, this was unprecedented in modern times, they were probably making the best of a bad situation.

Yes, it was unprecedented. And the situation, had the King married again whilst Diana was still alive, would also have been unprecedented. So we don’t know what would have happened with titles.

Sorry for clumsy sentence structure!

When I was a teen, my friend's widowed mother was very upset to get a letter from the school addressed to Mrs Jane Jones (not real name!) as she felt that this implied divorce. As a widow, she preferred Mrs David Jones. Admittedly, this was in the 1970s, but we were only at a very ordinary comp, not private school full of aristocracy!

What IS the big deal about HRH status?