Britain’s royal baby: 10 strange facts

royal baby

There’s still no sign of Britain’s royal baby, even though the world’s media have been camped for three weeks outside the London hospital where Prince William’s wife Catherine is due to give birth.

As the “Great Kate Wait” continues, here are 10 things you might not have known about the little future monarch:

1) Genealogists say the baby will be distantly related to Dracula, the 15th century prince who inspired Bram Stoker’s famous vampire. Experts have also traced the family tree back to an Islamic sultan who is believed to be descended from the Prophet Mohammed.

2) Finland has gifted William and Kate with a special ‘baby box’ received by all expectant mothers in the Nordic country, which includes infant clothing, bra pads and even condoms.

3) By custom, earlier royal births were witnessed by the interior minister, in order to ensure that the heir was legitimate. Luckily for Kate, this tradition ended in 1936.

4) The baby does not necessarily need to have a surname — but if William and Kate want it to have one, they can choose between Mountbatten-Windsor, Wales and Cambridge.

5) World landmarks including Niagara Falls, Toronto’s CN Tower and the fountains at London’s Trafalgar Square will turn pink or blue to celebrate the birth, depending on whether it is a girl or boy.

6) The journalists camped outside Kate’s hospital are almost crying with boredom after a three-week wait, but it was a different story when William was born in 1982.

His mother Princess Diana fooled the press by telling them her son was due on July 1 — he arrived 10 days earlier, catching the newspapers completely off guard.

7) You can place your bets on everything from the baby’s name to what its hair colour will be. The bookmakers’ favourite names are Alexandra for a girl and George for a boy.

But you could win big if William and Kate opt for one of the unlikelier choices — Prince Wayne, for example, has odds of 500/1.

8) The baby already has its own Wikipedia page — “Child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge”.

9) Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has knitted a kangaroo for the baby.

10) Football superstar David Beckham has suggested that the royal couple should name their baby after him. “I think they should go for David,” he said in an interview this week, adding: “If it’s a boy.”

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