Sweden: More about the name of Princess Adrienne

I wrote the article about the name of Princess Adrienne on Tuesday evening because I didn't have the time to blog on Monday when the Council of State, in which the name was announced, took place. But I still managed to miss out on some additional information about the name, so I will have to write another blog article on the subject.

The Swedish magazine Svensk Damtidning wrote on 12 March 2018 under the headline «Svensk Damtidning avslöjar – hemligheten bakom Madeleines namnval» («Svensk Damtidning reveals – the secret behind Madeleine's name choice») that Adrienne was a name Queen Silvia had loved for many years. According to the Swedish pastor Adrienne Riddez on her Facebook wall (her message seems to have been deleted), they met eachother some time in the late 1990s and the queen had said: «Oh, is your name Adrienne, that is such a beautiful name. I should have given that to Madeleine!» And a generation later the name was given to Princess Madeleine's third child.

The head of the information department at the Royal Court in Sweden, Margareta Thorgren, seems to have confirmed the story, but also stressed that Princess Madeleine and Chris O'Neill had chosen the name for the simple reason that they liked it. «They chose Alice after Princess Madeleine's grandmother [«mormor» – «mother's mother»] and Josephine after Chris' grandmother [«mormor» – «mother's mother»]. But the name Adrienne stands on its own.»

The last piece of information is quite interesting. Naturally most commentators, myself included, pointed at Queen Josephine of Sweden as the source of inspiration for the name. I should of course have double-checked the ancestry of Chris O'Neill before I published my article on Tuesday night. After all, some information about his family has been published at the Nobiliana forum in the thread «Ancestors of Christopher O'Neill» (too many contributors to mention them all). Svensk Damtidning, and/or Ms. Thorgren, has messed up a bit, though. It is Chris' farmor («father's mother») who was named Josephine, not his mormor: Josephine Cesario, b. around 1896.