Meghan and Harry have given no clues as to what they’re intending to call their baby – but that doesn’t stop people guessing.
Since the couple announced they were expecting, betting companies have been releasing the odds on potential names, ranging from Diana to Albert.
But with Meghan due to give birth any day now, what are the most likely contenders for the royal baby name?
According to Coral, Diana (6/1), Grace (6/1), and Elizabeth (8/1), are the girls’ names with the highest odds – while Arthur (8/1) and Phillip (10/1) are the most popular for boys.
Other, more unusual names, suggested by Coral include Allegra, with the odds of 12/1, and Frances, with the odds 25/1.
Other betting companies have similar suggestions for the most likely royal baby name. Ladbrokes suggests Elizabeth is the most likely girls’ name, followed by Diana, Grace, Victoria and Alice. For boys, the bookmakers suggests Albert, Philip, Arthur or James.
And Betfair has very similar odds: Diana is the favourite, followed by Arthur and Alice. More unusual names people are betting on include Tyrone, Cecilia, Augustus, and Rhys.
According to bookmakers’ aggregator Oddschecker, Arthur, Alice, Diana, Victoria and James are in the top five. Most unlikely on the betting list are Chantelle, Mercedes, Tracey and Rodney. (You don’t say...)
Rumours circulated on Tuesday suggest the baby is likely to be called James, Alexander or Arthur. This was because the website www.royal.uk has landing pages for all major members of the royal family, including the children. Prince George’s page, for example, has the URL www.royal.uk/prince-george.
If you apply this formula to test a random name, such as Princess Grace, you are greeted with: ‘page not found’. But, if you test the names Prince Arthur (www.royal.uk/prince-arthur), Prince James (www.royal.uk/prince-james) and Prince Alexander (www.royal.uk/prince-alexander), the pages bounce back to the main page, suggesting those pages are “held” but not yet “live”.
However, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson reportedly denied rumours, according to Elle, saying: “A large number of search term redirects were set up some time ago on royal.uk. This was in order to improve user experience. For guidance you will note that other names preceded by ‘prince’ or ‘princess’ produce the same result.”