Disclaimer: This article is satirical.
Dear Kate,
Can I call you Kate? We can also go with Duchess if you prefer. Or Catherine. K-Middy?
Anyway, first of all, congratulations on the pregnancy! Now that you’ve got the whole heir and the spare thing out of the way, hopefully, you can have a slightly more chill experience than the last two times around and just go full pregnant woman on this one. Plus – now that you’ve got a boy and a girl, your hand-me-down wardrobes are really set. Win.
Also, I know you must be feeling pretty sick right now, so my non-medical treatment recommendation is some rice crackers on the couch and putting your feet up. There's a really good series on Netflix right now called The Crown, I highly recommend watching it while you're there; very binge-worthy. Wills might even enjoy it too.
The real reason I'm writing, though, is that I want to talk to you about something pretty serious. Woman to woman, stranger to stranger, pauper to royalty.
I know we've never met or are likely to meet due to the fact that we're separated by multiple oceans, a rigid social class system and having literally nothing in common, but still, I'm reaching out here. I'm begging you...
Please don't steal my baby name.
You see, while you and your crew spent the hours following the announcement of your pregnancy popping non-alcoholic bottles of champagne and tearing through the halls of Buckingham Palace celebrating, the bookies were going to town crunching the odds and hedging their bets as to what the next member of your family will be named. And very unhappily for me, apparently, it's Alice.
Now, I know you could argue that seeing as I'm not currently pregnant or have any intention to be pregnant anytime soon I don't really have the right to be making these kinds of demands, but that kind of argument never stopped Monica Gellar from shaming Rachel Green when she stole Emma, did it? And as my later grandmother once said, let's not let logistics get in the way of a good argument.
Listen: Mia Freedman, Holly Wainwright and Jessie Stephens talk about the fact that the royals have pulled off one of the greatest PR turn-arounds in history, on Mamamia Outloud. Post continues after audio.
Because on the off-chance that my birth control fails or I suddenly have a change of heart as to what the actual purpose of introducing children into my world is and decide to go down the baby path, I've always dreamed of calling my daughter Alice.
And I know it's not your fault that whatever names you bestow upon your children automatically become trends for the next decade, but for better or worse, that's what happens. And if you name your actual nearly-here child the name that I maybe one day want to use, my imaginary future daughter that may never even come into existence won't be able to, damn it. She'll have to be something else because there'll already be another eight million Alice's in the maternity wing on any given day.
Also, it's just bad practice of girlfriend-code to steal names that have already been called. And as someone who appears to have a friendship group consisting of your brother-in-law and your sister, I don't know, maybe you should consider having my back on this one.
And look, no judgment for you liking the name, Alice. Clearly, we've both got excellent taste. But why not screw the bookies and go with a wildcard name? Because it's not really like Royal Baby Number 3 needs to follow tradition.
Why not go with something like Kim. Or Bernadette. Or Veronica. Sharon also has a certain ring to it.
I just think we'll both be happier if you stay away from Alice and let me have it.
On the off chance after all of this you have a son, though, please ignore this note altogether and send my best regards to George and Charlotte.
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