Answers to all of your burning royal baby questions

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are having a baby and we’re pretty sure that means the next royal crumpet will be part Torontonian (Meghan did live here, after all). Here’s a royal baby primer with answers to all of your burning questions, including some Toronto-specific tidbits.

What do we know so far? Here ye, here ye: the parents-to-be shared their happy news from the Kensington Palace Twitter account yesterday morning. The baby is expected in Spring 2019 and, according to People magazine’s “royal insider,” Meghan is twelve weeks along and “feeling well.”

Will the baby have a title? Yes, but exactly what that title will be is still up in the heir (ha). Tradition dictates that “dukedom” passes from father to son, meaning that if the baby is a boy, he would eventually be the Duke of Sussex. If it’s a girl, however, the title dies out. The other option is to take the more egalitarian route: Prince for a boy and Princess for a girl, which is what Will and Kate did. (But it’s ultimately the Queen’s call.)

What about a name? The baby will certainly have a name. More certainly, the internet will spend the next six months speculating about it. Alice and Philip have been tapped as early favourites, but Diana is also a strong possibility, given Harry’s close relationship with his beloved mum. There’s also a chance that they might go with something less traditional, since their kid is unlikely to sit on the throne.

How unlikely? Baby Markle will be seventh in line for the throne, meaning Charles, William, George, Charlotte, Louis and Harry would all have to meet untimely deaths.

How is Meghan’s Toronto ex, Cory Vitiello, taking the news? Presumably pretty well, since he’s spent the past few weeks wrapped up in his own baby excitement. The Toronto celebrity chef and his girlfriend, Dragonette’s Martina Sorbara, welcomed a baby boy last month.

Will Jessica Mulroney be the godmother? The odds are in her favour, not just because she’s best friends with Meghan (rumour has it she’s currently in Australia to dress Meghan during her 16-day royal tour), but also because royal babies tend to have a lot of godparents.

What else? It has barely been 24 hours since the big announcement and there are already numerous gossip threads popping up all over the internet. For starters, some people found it a little insensitive that Meghan and Harry chose to announce their news on International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. (Presumably, this was a case of bad timing.) There has also been some concern over the Zika virus risk on their Royal Tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. Finally, there’s a question floating around about whether Meghan and Harry purposely set out to steal Princess Eugenie’s wedding thunder by making their baby announcement on the heels of her big day. Fergie seems to think they did.