What do the names of the ruling Houses of England signify? (Family names, places, something else?)?

Question

Forgive the ignorance of this American girl, please :-)

Thank you, Greyguy, that's a big help!

Answer 1

In the past, before surnames were common, they were the names of lands held in title (such as the Houses of Anjou and Blois), or of ancestors (e.g., House of Plantagenet).

This has carried on in the modern day through the use of titles as surnames. For example, when George I took the throne, he was also Elector of Hanover (in what is now Germany), so he began the House of Hanover in the U.K.

When Victoria became queen, the lands in Hanover were lost, because of their adherence to Salic Law (meaning that the title could not pass to or through a woman). Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, so that her children (including her successor, Edward VII) were of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

During World War I, the royal family changed their name to Windsor because Germany was their opponent in the war.

When the current queen married Philip of Mountbatten, the house name for her children would have been Mountbatten (which, by the way, had been changed in World War I from Battenberg). Elizabeth II, however, decreed that her children's surname would combine the two as "Mountbatten-Windsor."

Her youngest son, Edward, however, has his business cards printed with the name "Edward Windsor."

Answer 2

A mix of family names and places. The early ones after 1066 were French followed by the British with Tudor and Stuart , both family names, then Dutch with the Orange ( a place name and the Germans to the present day with Hanover ( a place name) followed by Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ( a family name) changed to Windsor ( a place name ) during WW1.