The Royal family are a bit of an enigma, for many reasons – one being the fact that you never really hear their last name.
J
ust like Cher, Madonna and Prince, the Royals’ surname is an afterthought. This is because, up until the early 20th century, they had no last name at all. Kings and princes were instead known by the names of the county they ruled, according to the royal family’s official website.
It states: The names of dynasties tended to change when the line of succession was taken by a rival faction within the family (for example, Henry IV and the Lancastrians, Edward IV and the Yorkists, Henry VII and the Tudors), or when succession passed to a different family branch through females (for example, Henry II and the Angevins, James I and the Stuarts, George I and the Hanoverians).
But thanks to King George V, that changed in 1917, when he ruled that his family and all of his descendants would have the surname Windsor. In 1960, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh wanted to distinguish their own descendants from the rest of the royal family, so it was decided that they would be called Mountbatten-Windsor.
The website states: Unless The Prince of Wales chooses to alter the present decisions when he becomes king, he will continue to be of the House of Windsor and his grandchildren will use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.