Regnal Name
Regnal Name
The name a British monarch chooses to reign under, which may differ from their birth forename and is formally adopted at accession to the throne.
When a British monarch ascends to the throne, they are not necessarily known by their birth forename. The regnal name is the name chosen for the reign, and its selection has significant constitutional and historical weight. Queen Victoria's birth name was Alexandrina Victoria; she chose to reign as Victoria. King George VI was born Albert Frederick Arthur George — his family called him 'Bertie' — but chose the regnal name George to distance the monarchy from the abdication crisis of his brother Edward VIII, who had reigned briefly as Edward VIII before abdicating in 1936.
Constitutional Process
Upon accession, the new monarch's regnal name is proclaimed at the Accession Council, an advisory body that meets within 24 hours of a sovereign's death. The choice is entirely at the monarch's personal discretion — there is no parliamentary approval required. In 2022, when Charles III acceded following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, some commentators had speculated whether he might choose a different regnal name to mark a break from his earlier public controversies; he chose Charles, his birth name.
Historical Patterns
The Hanoverian and Windsor dynasties show clear patterns of regnal name selection influenced by dynastic continuity and political messaging. The House of Windsor itself was created by a naming act: in 1917, King George V changed the royal family's name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor, an entirely English-sounding name, in response to anti-German sentiment during World War I. This demonstrates how naming at the highest level of British society is always entangled with politics, identity, and public perception.