Meghan Markle is opening up about the Sussex family name.
In an episode of With Love, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s new Netflix show, Meghan and her friend Mindy Kaling team up to organize a kids’ garden party with activities. The two have been “email pen pals” since Kaling appeared on Meghan’s Archetypes podcast in 2022.
On the Archetypes episode they taped together, the two bonded over both being latchkey kids, which Meghan spoke about again in her Netflix series: “I was a latchkey kid,” Meghan, 43, said, adding that she “grew up with fast food and TV tray dinners, microwavable kids’ meals.”
She added she “grew up with that and watching Jeopardy and having a lot of fast food — Taco Bell, Jack in the Box.”
Kaling, 45, replied, “People wouldn’t believe that Meghan Markle ate at Jack in the Box.”
Meghan said, “It’s so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now.”
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“You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children,’ ” Meghan continued. “I didn’t know how meaningful that would be to me, but it just means so much to go, this is our family name, our little family name.”
Meghan opened up about the significance of their Sussex family name in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, saying: “I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me,” Meghan says.
Sharing that the Sussex name “is part of our love story,” she continues, “I think as the kids get older, they’re so excited about, ‘Oh my gosh, Mama and Papa, how did you meet?’ I think that will come with time as they get older, but for right now a huge part of our love story is that we share the name Sussex.”
Upon their May 2018 wedding, Queen Elizabeth bestowed the titles of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to Prince Harry and Meghan.
The couple’s children, Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3, use the Sussex name as their surname, a tradition within the royal family. Similarly, Harry was known as “Harry Wales” during his school years, adopting his father King Charles’ former title, Prince of Wales, as his last name.
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Archie and Lilibet were initially known as “Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor” and “Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor,” but were granted the titles of prince and princess following their grandfather King Charles’ ascension to the throne in September 2022. Meghan and Harry officially used these titles for the first time in March 2023, during the announcement of Lili’s christening, and their names were updated to “Prince Archie of Sussex” and “Princess Lilibet of Sussex” on the royal family’s official website.
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Meghan and Kaling are both moms, and Meghan said in episode two that she’s always thinking about the “parent experience” when she hosts a kids’ party.
“It’s a real delight to be a present parent,” Meghan said. “It’s a luxury because we all have to work.”
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At the 2025 Golden Globes on Jan. 5, Kaling opened up about being a parent herself — and how Meghan contacted her when she was two months postpartum with her youngest to ask her, “Do you want to be on my show?”
“And when you hang out with Meghan, you know the food is going to be good,” she said. “And so it’s just nice to have someone else cooking for me.”
She added, “And I was like, ‘I’ll come to Montecito and have you cook for me and go to your garden.’ And that’s what we did.”
