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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's baby name: Twitter has regally snarky ideas

Prince Angus Nitro? Prince Gary? How about Joffrey, or Billy Joe?

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
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BRITAIN-ROYALS-BABY

The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, gave birth to a boy on Monday. The official birth announcement was set up on an easel at the gates of Buckingham Palace. 

 Tolga Akmen / AFP/Getty Images

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, aka the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, welcomed a baby boy on Monday. The baby is the first British royal born to an American parent.

Dad Harry said the couple is still thinking about names. "That's the next bit," he said, suggesting a name will be announced in two days.

The British Royal Family tends to reuse family first names over and over, so such names as Albert, Arthur, Charles and Philip keep coming up. But this baby is only seventh in line to the throne, so really, there's room for Harry and Meghan to step off the traditional name path, as Princess Anne did in 1981 when she named her daughter Zara.

Some would like to see the baby's name include Spencer, to honor the last name of Harry's mother, the late Princess Diana.

"Spencer" was high on the oddsmakers' lists, too, though not as high as Arthur, Albert and Philip. Meghan Markle's own father's name, Thomas, even made the betting lists despite their frayed relationship.

Some observers are rooting for a Yankee Doodle Dandy of a name, just to bring a little star-spangled Americana into the royal family. "Don't care for the royals but I'm praying they give this baby a really American name like Greyson or Tucker or Brad," wrote one Twitter user.

And of course, some names are just awesome dreams. "They should name the royal baby something badass like Angus ," wrote one Twitter user.

And a certain departed Tudor king who had problems getting himself a son of his own had something to say, too. 

"He's royal. He's a ginger. His name is Harry. And his wife gives birth to a boy. There's not enough wine for this," snarked the Henry VIII parody account.

There's room for plenty of names stuffed into the new baby's moniker. Dad Prince Harry has four names (Henry Charles Albert David) and the Queen's uncle, who abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry divorced American Wallis Simpson, had seven names (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David).