The world may know her by her maiden name, but Meghan Markle—it seems—wants to be addressed with a new name. In her new eight-part Netflix series With Love, Meghan, she seems to suggest to Mindy Kaling that she wants to be addressed as Meghan Sussex now.

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At one point in the show, the Duchess of Sussex is seen correcting Kaling as the latter refers to Meghan as 'Meghan Markle'. Meghan is quick to point out, “It’s so funny that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now.”

“You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children.’ And that feels so…I didn’t know how meaningful it would be, but it just means so much to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name,’” she continued. 

In response, Kaling replies, “Now I know, and I love it.”

How Meghan became Sussex

When US actress Meghan Markle married Britain's Prince Harry in 2018, Queen Elizabeth II had given the newly married couple the title Duke and Duchess of Sussex. 

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When Harry and Meghan’s kids Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet were born in 2019 and 2021, respectively, they were previously known as “Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor” and “Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor,” which is the familial surname of the British royal family.

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However, after Queen Elizabeth’s death on September 8, 2022, her son King Charles III took over the throne, and the children were given the titles of “Prince” and “Princess” because their grandfather was now the monarch, per the 1917 Letters Patent issued by King George V. 

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Harry and Meghan first publicly used these titles in March 2023 upon the occasion of their daughter Lilibet’s christening.

In an interview with People, Meghan has opened up about the relevance of the surname. 

“I think as the kids get older, they’re so excited about, ‘Oh my gosh, Mama and Papa, how did you meet?’ I think that will come with time as they get older, but for right now, a huge part of our love story is that we share the name Sussex," she said. 

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“It's our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognised how meaningful that would be to me until we had children,” she added. “I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H, and I all have together. It means a lot to me.”