Victoria of the United Kingdom

Surname

Victoria belonged to the House of Hanover, whereby some assign the surname d'Este or the surname Guelph to her though she never needed to use any surname (some other descendants of the House of Hanover have used the surname Hanover in Britain). Her husband belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and accordingly at Victoria's death, that House ascended the British throne in person of her son and heir Edward VII - according to custom of nobles and royals, a wife never gains the membership of her husband's house, but remains as belonging to her own and thus Victoria was not of House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. As a married woman, most genealogists assign to her the surname von Wettin, based on the advice of the College of Heralds. (As such she is sometimes referred to as Alexandrina Victoria von Wettin, née Hanover.)

Related Topics:
House of Hanover - Este - Guelph - House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha - Von Wettin - College of Heralds - Née

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While Albert was of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the German house was descended from the Ernestine Branch of the Wettin dynasty. Victoria asked her staff to determine what Albert's and now her own marital surname was. After examining records from the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha archives, they reported that her husband's personal surname, as was the case with other members of both the Ernestine and Albertine branches, was Wettin (or von Wettin). Queen Victoria's papers record her dislike of the name. Her grandson, George V, again explored the issue when changing both the surname and Royal House name in 1917 to Windsor. The College of Heralds again informed him that his family surname prior to the change was Wettin. (In the early 1960s an Order-in-Council partially reversed the decision by granting Queen Elizabeth II's descendants a separate family surname, Mountbatten-Windsor.)

Related Topics:
House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - Windsor - 1960s - Order-in-Council - Queen Elizabeth II - Mountbatten-Windsor

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