Princess Eugenie hinted at her favourite girl's name almost ten years before her daughter, Adelaide, was born

 

Princess Eugenie dropped a major hint about her favourite girl's name almost a full decade before she and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, welcomed their first daughter. And she did it in a very public way - on her wedding day.

Back in October 2018, when Eugenie and Jack married at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, the princess made a very clever jewellery pick which now has an added significance. For after the big reception at Windsor Castle, there was a party at Frogmore House that evening to keep the celebrations going. And the bride chose a set of diamond hair clips that belonged to the queen that now shares her daughter's name.

Princess Eugenie, Mrs Brooksbank, walked into her evening do in a pale pink dress and with her hair swept back to one side by some diamonds shaped as wheat ears that had been commissioned for Queen Adelaide, consort of William IV. In fact, it was the king who had them made, ordering six in total for her in 1830, the year she became queen as the throne passed to him. Adelaide, ever dutiful and loyal to the Crown, gave them to her niece, Victoria, in the year that she became queen. And Victoria made them heirlooms of the Crown, meaning that they always remain within the Royal Family.

That's how Eugenie came to wear them on her wedding day. She'd made good use of the royal jewellery box in advance, surprising everyone with a pretty much unknown tiara for her wedding ceremony. Eugenie famously wore the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik for the service at St. George's. It's an emerald and diamond tiara, given to the Royal Family by the fabulously wealthy Mrs Greville, who had no heirs of her own and wanted the Windsors to sparkle a little bit more.  The diadem won plenty of admirers on Eugenie's wedding day and the hair clips passed a little under the radar. But they've come into their own as the princess announces her daughter's name.

Adelaide Brooksbank was born on August 3rd in Lisbon

Revealing that she and Jack had called their little girl Adelaide Elizabeth Annina, she said that their inspiration had come from three women, past and present, that they both admired. Elizabeth is a nod to Eugenie's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, while it's been reported that Annina is a personal connection of the couple. However, Adelaide is a reference, at least in part, to Queen Adelaide, a largely forgotten queen but one whose name is now back in the headlines as it becomes part of the royal story again.