Everything Meghan Markle Has Said About Her Sussex Last Name

Markle or Sussex? Meghan Markle finally set the record straight about her last name in August 2025.

A clip from her Netflix lifestyle show, With Love, Meghan, went viral in March 2025 when she corrected friend Mindy Kaling for referring to her as “Meghan Markle” throughout their segment.

“You keep saying, ‘Meghan Markle.’ You know I’m ‘Sussex’ now?” she pointed out.

There’s a genuine reason why Meghan corrected her friend on camera. Meghan was given the royal title of the Duchess of Sussex when she married Prince Harry — whose royal title is the Duke of Sussex — in 2018.

Even though Meghan and Harry formally stepped down from their royal duties in January 2020, they have maintained their formal titles while building a new life for their family in California. (Meghan and Harry are parents to two children: Prince Archie of Sussex, born in May 2019, and Princess Lilibet of Sussex, born in June 2021. Their two children initially had the royal family’s official last name “Mountbatten-Windsor” listed on their birth certificates, but Meghan and Harry later opted to use their children’s titles instead.)

Unfortunately, the Duchess’ slightly awkward correction on With Love, Meghan caused confusion on social media about the proper way to address her.

Keep scrolling for an explanation about Meghan’s new last name and its historical significance.

The Confusion

Kaling inadvertently kickstarted a viral sensation in a March 2025 episode of Netflix’s With Love, Meghan when she referenced her close friend’s relatable background.

“I don’t think that anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack in the Box,” Kaling joked.

As Meghan chuckled, she corrected Kaling: “You keep saying, ‘Meghan Markle.’ You know I’m ‘Sussex’ now?”

Kaling seemed puzzled by the interjection, leading the Duchess of Sussex to clarify that she gained a new last name when she married Prince Harry.

“I share my [‘Sussex’] name with my children,” she clarified. “I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to say, ‘This is our family name!’”

Kaling warmly assured her pal, “Now I know and I love it.”

The With Love, Meghan clip caused a huge splash on social media, as some of her fans insisted that Meghan’s explanation was technically correct, while others complained that her correction of Kaling was not relatable.

The Clarification

During an appearance on The Circuit with Emily Chang in August 2025, Meghan was finally asked directly whether people should refer to her as “Markle” or “Sussex.” Host Emily Chang encouraged her guest to give viewers “a tutorial on royal naming conventions.”

“Are you Meghan Sussex? Are you Meghan, Duchess of Sussex? Is Markle even on your passport anymore? Is it, we don’t use that term anymore?” Chang wondered.

Meghan reiterated that she formally changed her name to “Sussex” once she got married, so it would be inappropriate to call her “Markle” now.

“It’s a complicated one for people to understand, because a last name is not typical in that [royal] construct,” she admitted.

The Duchess clarified that “Sussex” is not technically her last name, adding: “It’s used roughly, or loosely, rather. It sounds so silly to say. And I get it, because I’m American and then I went there and I started to understand. But then you come back and as an American, you go, ‘I’m so confused.’ It’s a dukedom.”

Later in the segment, she confirmed to Chang that her “legal name is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.”

“Sussex for us works as our family name and it’s the name that we share with our children,” she went on. “Since we’ve been married, that’s what I’ve been called.”

Meghan mentioned she’d realized since marrying into the royal family that the values of being a “Sussex” were more important than whatever her legal name may be.

“What I learned about myself is no matter what my name is or what people call me, I’m still the same person,” she said. “So that didn’t really, that didn’t change who I am. And maybe that’s probably the biggest distinguishing factor.”

Family Legacy

Prior to her appearance on The Circuit with Emily Chang, Meghan shed some light on why the “Sussex” name is so important to her family. She explained to People in March 2025 that becoming a Sussex is a “part of [her] love story” with Harry.

The “Sussex” naming convention is similar to the way Meghan’s husband was called “Harry Wales” in school as he was growing up, due to his parents — then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana — being the Prince and Princess of Wales. (Charles became King in September 2022 following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, while Diana was killed with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in an August 1997 car crash in Paris. Charles and Diana divorced in August 1996.)

“I think as the kids get older, they’re so excited about, ‘Oh my gosh, Mama and Papa, how did you meet?’” Meghan told the publication. “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 also noted, “It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognized how meaningful that would be to me until we had children … I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.”