Prince William is “angry” that Prince Harry and Meghan “intentionally” call his wife Kate instead of Catherine.
The Princess of Wales reportedly asked friends to call her Catherine instead of Kate shortly before marrying into the royal family.
But a friend of the couple said the Prince of Wales was bothered by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex calling his wife Kate in public “even as they were sending messages of sympathy following her cancer diagnosis.”
A friend of William and Kate told The Daily Beast:
“It’s a very simple request to be respectful.” Meghan would surely be unhappy if Prince William called her “Meghan Markle” in public.
“Obviously it’s completely petty but those of us who know William know it’s one of the things that upsets him. It seemed a totally unnecessary and deliberate annoyance to upset him at a time when his wife is suffering from cancer.”
Another friend of the couple added that it was “horribly disrespectful” to Harry, Meghan and Kate.
“No one is saying they are responsible for all the problems but it is totally disrespectful to deliberately call someone a name that you hate,” the friend said.
“If Harry and Meghan were serious about trying to resolve their issues, a good first step would be to call her Catherine.” This was “intentional annoyance” and may have been a factor in Prince William and Kate’s failure to offer condolences to Harry and Meghan following their cancer diagnosis.
Kate’s name request was made in 2008, two years before William eventually proposed to her.
Prince Harry also wrote in his sensational memoir, Spare, that the current King “asked his daughter-in-law to change the spelling of his first name.”
The former working royal claimed his father wanted his sister-in-law’s first name to be spelled differently, from a C to a K. The Duke of Sussex wrote that he told his brother about his father’s proposal at the time. “I turned to Willie and he gave me this look that said, ‘Are you listening to me?'”
Kensington Palace has been contacted for comment.