Windsor [key], name of the royal house of Great Britain. The name Wettin, family name of Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, consort of Queen Victoria, as well as Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the name of the British royal house beginning with Edward VII (their eldest son), was changed to Windsor by George V in 1917. The new name was adopted by all members of the family. In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II, who married Philip Mountbatten, duke of Edinburgh, decreed that she and her descendants (other than females who marry) should retain the name Windsor. A declaration of 1960, however, declared that all her direct descendants, other than those bearing the title prince or princess and styled Royal Highness (i.e., the sovereign's children, the children of the sovereign's sons, and the eldest son of the eldest son of the prince of Wales) and females who marry, would be known as Mountbatten-Windsor. The name Mountbatten-Windsor also is used by those styled Royal Highness when they need to use a surname. Windsor remained the name of the British royal house.
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