Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank have recently announced the birth of their second child. They are now proud parents to August Philip Hawke Brooksbank -- affectionately called Augie -- and now Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank.
And whether you are a fan of matching or complimentary sibling names, it's hard not to agree that Eugenie has done it extremely well.
Firstly, there are the obvious similarities between August and Ernest: they are both two-syllables, both begin with vowels and end with -st. So far, so matchy.
Both names also share a Victorian style-era. Ernest was a top 20 name for five decades, from 1870 to 1924, in England and Wales. August, however, was little used in Britain — the forms Augustus, Augustine, and even Austin, were more common. But in Germany, where August was the standard form of Augustus, the name was also in the German top 20 at the end of the 19th century.
Another element to the vintage name choice is nickname. Princess Eugenie has already revealed that they call August "Augie" and the standard nickname for Ernest is Ernie. Both -ie names fit perfectly with the grandpa nickname trend that has been dominating in England and Wales for the last decade.
Digging a little deeper, both August and Ernest are adjective names. And, yes, thousands of names derive from adjectives — Asher ("happy"), Rhys ("ardent"), Finn ("fair-haired"), etc — but not many are adjectives in English like august and earnest. August means 'dignified and impressive' and earnest means 'serious and determined'.
Looking at the above, we can see clearly that August and Ernest have an awful lot in common onomastically. Yet we haven't even touched on the reasons that Eugenie herself has given in choosing her sons' names.
In August's birth announcement on her Instagram stories, the princess stated, "He is named after his great-grandfather and both of his great x5 grandfathers". Royal enthusiasts were quick to realise that one of those great x5 grandfathers was Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, whose birth name was Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel.
Ernest's birth announcement states, "He is named after his great great great Grandfather George, his Grandpa George and my Grandpa Ronald." The great x3 grandfather in question is George V, whose full name was George Frederick Ernest Albert.
So, both August and Ernest are the middle names of prominent royals in Princess Eugenie's family tree.
Interestingly, Ernest and August as a name combo and as sibling names litter the royal family tree, starting with Ernest Augustus (Ernst August in German), Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1629-1698) who was the father of George I and was followed by three more royal Ernest Augustus princes.
The balance in the two names doesn't just extend to the first names. Equal balance has been given to middle names. Both boys have a middle name from both their father's and their mother's family. Philip and Ronnie are in honour of Princess Eugenie's grandfathers — Prince Philip and Major Ronald Ferguson. Hawke and George are from the Brooksbanks family tree. George is in honour of Jack's father, George Brooksbanks, and Hawke is one of the above-mentioned great x5 grandfathers.
According to the latest data for England and Wales (2021), August ranks at #461 and is on a steep upward curve. Ernest ranks at #305 and has plateaued since 2015. Perhaps a new royal baby will give it a boost.
