{"id":2239786,"date":"2026-01-18T16:18:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2239786"},"modified":"2026-01-18T16:18:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:18:04","slug":"james-earl-of-wessex-brought-an-unusual-middle-name-to-the-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/james-earl-of-wessex-brought-an-unusual-middle-name-to-the-royals\/","title":{"rendered":"James, Earl of Wessex brought an unusual middle name to the royals"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Royal babies usually get rather royal names but when the Duke
\nand Duchess of Edinburgh welcomed their son, in 2007, their choices
\nsurprised many. And the unusual pick of Edward and Sophie could
\nhave even more unusual origins.<\/p>\n

The baby boy born on December 17th 2007 at Frimley Park Hospital
\nwas a fourth grandson for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
\nFour days later, his proud parents took him home from hospital
\nwhile everyone else got used to the names they had chosen for
\nhim.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Royal Family\/
\nTwitter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Their choice of James caused some discussion. It\u2019s been one of
\nthe most popular names in the UK for decades but, in royal circles,
\nit had had a bit of a question mark over it as it had been well
\nused by the Stuart dynasty. They had lost the throne in 1688 but
\nnever lost hope of regaining it but their Catholic faith was a
\nmajor obstacle. The proliferation of princes called James in their
\nranks led to their supporters being known as Jacobites and led to
\nthe name beoming a no no for the very Protestant Hanoverians who
\nfollowed them.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 200 years and that was all history. Besides, Edward
\nand Sophie had already said their children wouldn\u2019t use the royal
\ntitles they were permitted under the 1917 Letters Patent of George
\nV so there was no chance of a Prince James bringing back echoes of
\nthe past at that point. However, one of the new baby\u2019s middle names
\nproved even more unusual.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"\"\"
i-Images\/ Pool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh called\u00a0their
\nson,\u00a0James Alexander Philip Theo, and it\u2019s the last of those
\nthat is really unusual in royal circles. \u00a0It\u2019s usually a
\nshortened version of Theodore but in James\u2019 case it\u2019s more likely a
\nnod to his maternal great grandfather who was called Theophilus
\nRhys-Jones.<\/p>\n

Theophilus was named after his own father and grandfather \u2013 in
\nfact, the family were rather fond of the name which means \u2018friend
\nof God\u2019 . \u00a0So James, Earl of Wessex might have had an even
\nmore unusual middle name.<\/p>\n

Even so, the youngest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and
\nPrince Philip still brings another interesting addition to the list
\nof unusual royal middle names.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Royal babies usually get rather royal names but when the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh welcomed their son, in 2007, their choices surprised many. And the unusual pick of Edward and Sophie could have even more unusual origins. The baby boy born on December 17th 2007 at Frimley Park Hospital was a fourth grandson for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2239787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2239786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/James-Earl-of-Wessex-brought-an-unusual-middle-name-to.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2239788,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239786\/revisions\/2239788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2239787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}