How are royal houses named?

Socrates

Are there any rules for the naming of royal houses? Am I right that the typical name would either be (a) the name of the first landed holding of the house or (b) the surname of the founding member?

Were these established rules, or could a house just grab whatever name they liked? Did anyone ever "trade up" names? For example, if the Duke of Aquitaine and became King of France, could you shift from being the "House of Aquitaine" to being the "House of France"?
 

the lord of rome

Houses with de or von or of followed by a name are named by the origin of the seat of power
Ex:
House of burgundy, house von habsburg

Houses with whose name mean son of or descendent of are named after their founder
Ex:
Karling (descendents of karl), Merovingians(descendents of merovech)

Houses whose names have a nickname has origin
Ex:
Lodbrok(for viking fans:p ragnar lodbrok means Ragnar Hairy Breeches)

there are many more but i think these are the most common origins
 

Just a Rube

"Houses" are just the last name of the royal family. Since the origins of last names are varied (a previous poster gave a good rundown of some of the most common ones), houses came from different origins. Often the family member will have taken that last name from the founder's seat of power (e.g. House of York descended from the Duke of York, or House of Lancaster descended from the Duke of Lancaster, both younger sons of Edward III).

As they are last names, they follow the standard rules (thus e.g. Edward VII was part of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, after his father, despite the fact that Edward's father was a miscellaneous minor German prince, and his mother was Queen of the United Kingdom, Empress of India, etc.).

And of course, royal houses are a bit of an abstraction anyway; the term "Plantagenet" for the royal house of England (as opposed to just a nickname for Geoffrey Plantagenet) didn't come into use until the 15th century; 3 centuries after Geoffrey's death and merely 2 generations before the house went extinct.

Later rulers did sometimes change their last names (e.g. Emperor Francis I was born in the House of Lorraine, but became the founder of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to emphasize his marriage into the vastly more prestigious Habsburg dynasty).
 

Yorel

the lord of rome said:
Houses with de or von or of followed by a name are named by the origin of the seat of power
Ex:
House of burgundy, house von habsburg

Houses with whose name mean son of or descendent of are named after their founder
Ex:
Karling (descendents of karl), Merovingians(descendents of merovech)

Houses whose names have a nickname has origin
Ex:
Lodbrok(for viking fans:p ragnar lodbrok means Ragnar Hairy Breeches)

there are many more but i think these are the most common origins
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Basically this.

Personnally, I'd be curious to know where the names of Royal Houses such as the Tudors or the Stuarts come from.
Socrates said:
Did anyone ever "trade up" names? For example, if the Duke of Aquitaine and became King of France, could you shift from being the "House of Aquitaine" to being the "House of France"?
Click to expand...
In a way, that's what happens. The House of Bourbon was referred as such before it ascended the throne of France: after Henri IV became King, the family was referred as the House of France. That said, I don't think the usage of House of Bourbon completely disappears: it is used alternatively but might be less common for the Royals than for the cadet members of the dynasty.
 

the lord of rome

Yorel said:
Personnally, I'd be curious to know where the names of Royal Houses such as the Tudors or the Stuarts come from.
Click to expand...

House of Stewart or House of Stuart

The name comes from their hereditary position has high stewart of scottland

House of Tudor

Enters in the category of the descendents because tudor was of welch origin and they named like this arthus ap mordred ap mordred's father and soo one
So i think that tudor was the name of one ancestors of the founder of the house tudor
 

Anneessens

alex costa said:
The Royal house of Portugal did change from Braganza to Braganza-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha after the reign of Maria II.
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Yeah, but that's not really the same as the Saxe-Coburgs changing their names to Windsor, though. The Portuguese case is a classic example of a name being added to emphasise an inheritance through a female line, the other one is a name change for policial reasons. Another example (already given) is Habsburg-Lorraine, but there are numerous others amongst the nobility, even today (ex. de Ligne de La Trémouille). I gather that Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp wasn't used by the dynasty itself, but informally by genealogists.

However, I don't think that there are any examples of monarchs acting like George V did either before or after 1917 . Even his Belgian Coburg cousins just silently ceased using their German title, but never went through a formal and publically announced name change. The only similar example I know of happened in the same context: the Tecks transforming into Cambriges. (Even Mountbatten is just basically an anglicisation of Battenberg.)
 

Bee

Tudor: from the Welsh ap Tewdor, which translates to son of Theodore. The historical Theodore/Tewdor was something like the grandfather of Henry VII -- not many generations back anyway.

Stuart, as said above, from the honorary title of steward.

The British dynasties of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha weren't surnames, they were the German states that each family came from. The family names were Welf (or Guelph) and Wettin, respectively, and that's how the dynasties continued to be known back in Germany.

There's no universal rule.
 

mcdnab

Yes there is a story (whether true or not) of a proof of the Almanach De Gotha being delivered to the Alexander Palace (presumably to check the entry was accurate) with the dynastic name given as Romanov-Holstein0 Gottorp - the H-G bit was crossed out - when the household received its copy it was of course reinserted and was pointed out to the Empress Consort it happened every year when she complained.

Erwin said:
I gather that Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp wasn't used by the dynasty itself, but informally by genealogists.

However, I don't think that there are any examples of monarchs acting like George V did either before or after 1917 . Even his Belgian Coburg cousins just silently ceased using their German title, but never went through a formal and publically announced name change. The only similar example I know of happened in the same context: the Tecks transforming into Cambriges. (Even Mountbatten is just basically an anglicisation of Battenberg.)
Click to expand...
 
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