Exclusive: King Charles and Prince Louis Share a Sweet Under-the-Radar Connection to One Another….See More

When thinking of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, so many memories come to mind—but it’s hard to forget the image of then Prince Charles (now King Charles) holding grandson Prince Louis on his lap during the pageant on the final day of the event marking the Queen’s historic 70 years on the throne.

The two clearly share a close bond, and 6-year-old Louis and his “Grandpa Wales” share a connection Hello! pointed out—and it has to do with their names. Louis is the only one of Charles’ five grandchildren to have Charles in one of his middle names (although, in all fairness, Princess Charlotte’s first name could be considered a feminine nod to Charles). Charles and Louis’ names are also connected through a shared middle name—Arthur.

The royals are known to be big fans of multiple middle names (but fluid surnames); as such, Charles’ given name is Charles Philip Arthur George, and Louis’ full name is Louis Arthur Charles. Their shared “Arthur” is “thought to be a nod to the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable,” according to Hello!.

Prince William, Charles’ son and Louis’ dad, also carries the middle name Arthur. Fun fact you can take to your next dinner party: Charles reportedly originally wanted to name his sons Arthur and Albert; Princess Diana, the boys’ mom, intervened, ultimately choosing her sons’ first names. (Charles’ choices made it as one of each boy’s respective middle names, though: William Arthur Philip Louis and Henry Charles Albert David, who, of course, uses the family nickname Harry in daily life.)

All of Charles’ five grandchildren’s names are chock full of meaning, actually. The eldest, Prince George Alexander Louis, has a name that honors Queen Elizabeth’s father, the late King George VI; Alexander could pay homage to the late Queen, as her full name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. Louis—which is not only George’s middle name but also, obviously, Louis’ first name, and a middle name of William’s—pays tribute to the late Lord Louis Mountbatten, a mentor of Charles’ and an uncle of Charles’ father, Prince Philip, who was brutally assassinated in 1979, not long before Charles and Diana began their courtship.

Both of Charles’ granddaughters, Princess Charlotte and Princess Lilibet, have middle names that honor the late Princess Diana, who died in 1997 in a Paris car accident. Lilibet’s first name is the familial nickname of Queen Elizabeth, and one of Charlotte’s middle names also honors her great-grandmother.

As for Prince Archie, the son of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, his parents said—after naming their nonprofit organization Archewell in his honor—that the name Archie was inspired by the Greek word “arche,” which means “source of action,” per People. Archie’s middle name is Harrison—a tribute to being Harry’s son—and the couple almost chose Harrison for his first name, they later revealed.

Charles may be King, but he’s also a doting grandfather, according to his wife Queen Camilla. Speaking in a 2018 interview for Prince, Son & Heir: Charles at 70, the former Duchess of Cornwall said of her husband that “He will get down on his knees and crawl about with them for hours, you know, making funny noises and laughing.”

She added that her grandchildren—the children of son Tom and daughter Laura, from her first marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles—“adore him, absolutely adore him.”

“He reads Harry Potter, and he can do all the different voices,” Camilla added. “And I think children really appreciate that.”