She ain’t got no royal blood, that’s why.

According to British protocol, Meghan Markle can’t call herself Princess Meghan – at least not with a capital “p”.

It’s just the same for her future sister-in-law. When Catherine Middleton married Prince William, she became Her Royal Highness, Princess William of Wales.

So, applying the same logic, Miss Markle will become Princess Harry of Wales, explains BBC.

Bloody archaic – says me, the wannabe feminist who would totally marry a royal to have princess somewhere in my new title.

So all you need is royal blood to call yourself a prince or princess? That is correct:

Royal blood meant that the Queen’s late sister Margaret was entitled to call herself Princess Margaret. Likewise the Queen’s daughter is Princess Anne and her granddaughters are Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

The rules also meant – to the consternation of many – that Lady Diana Spencer was never officially Princess Diana. She was the Princess of Wales and, after her divorce from Prince Charles, she was Diana, Princess of Wales.

As the BBC’s Nicholas Witchell explained at the time of William and Kate’s engagement in 2011, the Royal Family has not flourished for 1,000 years or so without finding a solution to this somewhat baffling and arguably meaningless issue of what people should be called.

From the point of view of Buckingham Palace, handy titles or “handles” are required for the members of the family who occupy prestigious but somewhat peripheral roles to the main business of monarchy.

The Queen’s first cousins are, respectively, the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, and when her disgraced uncle abandoned the throne to marry an American divorcee in 1936, he became the Duke of Windsor.

But then, as with many things connected to British royal protocol, there’s always an exception to the rule.

You might be wondering why then, is the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, called, well, a Prince.

When he married the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, the then British King, George VI, dubbed him “Duke of Edinburgh”. But in February 1957, the Queen “accorded him the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom”.

So she could, if she wanted to, make both Kate and Meghan princesses in their own right, but they would have to do something pretty impressive to get such an honour.

[source:bbc]