They make a handsome family, don't they? As you may remember, we went through a bit of the potential names, and yes, George and Louis were both on the list that we dissected, though it was nice to see Alexander, one of the names that wasn't on the top of the oddsmaker's lists, find its way into the running (though considering they skipped the traditional three middle names, couldn't they have thrown in a John?)
Anyway, because I'm a perfectionist, I figured it would be important to throw in Alexander as one of the names to look at, as the name is more than just Alexander the Great. Alexander has a long history within the European royal families as a prominent name, though not necessarily as prominent in the English family as within, say, the Dutch, Yugoslavian, or Russian families. If you examine the British royals, you have Alexander Mountbatten, Marquess of Carisbrooke, a first cousin of King George V through Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Beatrice (as you may be able to tell from these write-ups, I both love monarchical history and Queen Victoria had a lot of children, and married them off extremely well). Prince Philip's great-grandfather was Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine. Also, both the former Duke of Kent (the Queen's uncle) and the reigning Duke of Gloucester (the Queen's cousin) both have Alexander as a middle name, and in the case of the Duke of Kent, had George as a first name (an odd choice for name inspiration, considering his rather amorous side activities-click the above link to learn more).
Amongst the living foreign royals that have bore the name are the current Crown Prince of Yugoslavia (who is the third cousin of Prince William through the Greek Royal Family). There is King Willem-Alexander, who is very distantly related to the British Royal Family (probably in several directions, though the one that I saw as most obvious was through his great-great grandmother Queen Emma, who was the great-great-great granddaughter of King George II (if someone knows a quicker way to connect the Dutch and British Royal Families, share in the comments)).
There are also several deceased royals that sport the name, including King Alexander I of Greece, who is the first cousin of Prince Philip. Three 12th and 13th Century Scottish Kings were also Alexander (there is certainly a connection at some point to the Royal Family through them, but I'm not going to pour through those family trees to find it-sorry, I get lost once we go back about 800 years).
Finally, Russia had three emperors with the name Alexander, all of whom are somewhat related to the young Prince (both the Queen and Prince Philip's mother shared an aunt who married Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, who was a direct descendant of Alexander III and was closely related to both of the other Alexander's). Again, there's almost certainly a blood relation in there as well, but I'm going to leave that for you lucky people to find, as I'm off to work. If you know of any more Alexander-related connections, or wanted to call out more about George, Louis, or what names you had been hoping for, hit me up in the comments!
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