Princess Eugenie Names 2-Week-Old Daughter Adelaide Elizabeth Annina Brooksbank

Q: What hidden family secret does the middle name Annina reveal about Princess Eugenie's newest royal baby?

It does not clearly reveal a confirmed “hidden family secret.” The strongest reading from the available reporting is that **“Annina” points to a private personal or family connection that Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank have chosen not to disclose publicly**. Eugenie said her daughter, **Adelaide Elizabeth Annina Brooksbank**, was named after “three people we love and admire past and present.” **Elizabeth** plainly honours **Queen Elizabeth II**, and **Adelaide** appears to draw on both **English and Portuguese history**, including links to **Queen Adelaide** and Portuguese figures named Maria Adelaide. The mystery is **Annina**. Multiple reports say it reflects an **unspecified personal connection**. Some coverage has speculated it could relate to someone in the couple’s wider social circle, including **Countess Annina Bruges von Pfuel**, a friend of Eugenie’s, but that has **not been confirmed**. So the “secret” implied by the middle name is really that **the couple embedded a private tribute into the baby’s name without identifying the person behind it**. Until Eugenie or Brooksbank explain it themselves, any more precise claim would be speculation rather than established fact.

Q: Beyond honoring Queen Elizabeth, what deeper historical ties connect the newborn to a 19th-century queen and Portuguese heritage?

The deeper ties are that “Adelaide” appears to nod to Queen Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the 19th-century consort of King William IV, while also echoing Portuguese royal and religious heritage through the name Maria Adelaide. That gives Princess Eugenie’s daughter a name rooted in both British and Portuguese history. In Britain, Queen Adelaide was queen consort from 1830 to 1837 and remains a recognizable royal figure from the pre-Victorian era, remembered for her charity and dignity. Her name survives prominently in places such as Adelaide, South Australia. On the Portuguese side, Eugenie explicitly said the name reflects “the English and Portuguese history” of the family’s two homes. Adelaide is widely seen as also resonating with Maria Adelaide of Portugal, a member of the Portuguese royal house whose name carries historical and devotional significance in Portugal. The baby’s birth in Lisbon and the family’s life between Portugal and Kensington Palace reinforce that Anglo-Portuguese link. More broadly, the choice fits a long tradition of ties between the British and Portuguese crowns, shaped by the centuries-old Anglo-Portuguese alliance formalized by the 1386 Treaty of Windsor and strengthened by royal marriages. So beyond Elizabeth II, the baby’s name appears to connect her both to a 19th-century British queen and to Portugal’s own royal heritage.

3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 17

Princess Eugenie said her daughter is named Adelaide Elizabeth Annina Brooksbank, revealing the name two weeks after the baby was born in Lisbon.
6lb 9oz Adelaide was born earlier this month in Portugal, and Eugenie said the name honors three loved and admired people, including Queen Elizabeth II, while reflecting English and Portuguese history.
Adelaide is Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank's third child after sons August, born in 2021, and Ernest, born in 2023; Eugenie said both are already "the best big brothers."
15th in line to the throne, Adelaide is not a Royal Highness and moves ahead of Prince Edward in the succession order.