Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been criticised by a top American psychiatrist for changing the surname of their two children to Sussex.
The change comes as the Duke and Duchess reportedly made the switch to “unify” the family with their brand and website.
Sussex.com replaced their former website, Archewell.com, promising to bring more personal updates about Harry and Meghan’s life and work.
Rather than being known as Mountbatten-Windsor, Archie and Lilibet have been known as Archie Sussex and Lilibet Sussex since King Charles’s Coronation in May 2023.
Dr Carole Lieberman says Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are ‘desperate’GBN America / Getty
The Prince and Princess of Wales’s children also go by their royal titles at school, and are named George, Charlotte and Louis Cambridge.
The royal couple faced widespread backlash for using their regal titles and a royal crest on their new website, sparking calls for their titles to be stripped completely.
Speaking to GBN America, Psychiatrist Dr Carole Lieberman has called the move by the Sussexes “desperate” and a bid to “cling on to the Royal Family”.
Royal commentator Petronella Wyatt has argued that revoking the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s titles would “elevate their brand” as they become the “Prince and Princess of Sussex”.
Dr Lieberman told host Mark Dolan: “They are getting desperate, ever more desperate. I think Meghan thought that when they went back to the United States that she and Harry would be very popular.
“They made all these plans about charities and so on. And she thought that they’d be able to do this just by carrying over the royal titles that they have and the history that they have and not doing any work as royals.”