Charlotte

It could have been much worse. Someone had pointed out that among the new baby’s ancestors was Queen Violant of Hungary, which would make a splendid name. If that sounds unlikely for a possible queen of the United Kingdom, the wee princess might have been the victim of a suggested cross-cultural gesture by being given the name Fatima, since the present Queen and her heirs are descended from Mohammed through his daughter. Such descent is not unusual, though in this case there are obscurities in the early generations and in later Spanish genealogical connections. Leaving that aside, the name Fatima is also used by Catholics, who take it from the town where the Virgin Mary was reported to have appeared in 1917 (itself, in one of those byways of onomastics, named after a princess who bore the name of Mohammed’s daughter). The one religion, however, that a queen regnant cannot be, as the law stands, is Catholic.