Meghan Markle just revealed how she and Prince Harry used to speak 'in code'

Ooh, fun!

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, speaks onstage during the 2025 TIME100 Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 23, 2025 in New York City
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Meghan Markle has revealed that she and Prince Harry used to speak "in code" — and sometimes still do. How fun is that?

By this point, it's well known among royal watchers that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex call each other "H" and "M," and while it's sort of obvious why, Meghan has just revealed how exactly these nicknames came to be.

During a recent appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show — marking Meghan's first-ever appearance on someone else's podcast — the host asked the Duchess (via the Mirror): "Your close friends and family, so many of them call you 'M' and Harry 'H.' How did that start? And tell me about that."

The US-based royal explained: "Probably at the beginning of us dating, when everything was in code. People didn’t know we were dating for, talk about memory lane, so long ago. I mean, it’ll be our seven-year wedding anniversary soon. I couldn’t tell anyone who I was dating, and who was keeping [the secret], so I think we were just on a letter basis."

But even though the nicknames had a practical purpose at first, "it stuck," Meghan shared. She added: "I like it. I love nicknames."

Meghan's conversation with Jamie, the founder of IT Cosmetics and author of Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life, comes amid a whole load of big career moves for the Duchess.

Meghan just launched a brand new podcast of her own, titled Confessions of a Female Founder With Meghan, on which she interviews — you guessed it — female founders about the keys to their success. And surprise, she's also just released an episode with Jamie!

The podcast is produced by Lemonada Media, after Meghan's recording contract with Spotify previously ended somewhat abruptly.

The Duchess has also just launched her new brand, called As Ever, which sells jams and other goodies, and which sold out almost immediately after launching. Big moves!

Iris Goldsztajn
Iris Goldsztajn is a celebrity and royal news writer for Marie Claire. As a London-based freelance journalist, she writes about wellness, relationships, pop culture, beauty and more for the likes of InStyle, Women's Health, Bustle, Stylist and Red. Aside from her quasi-personal investment in celebs' comings and goings, Iris is especially interested in debunking diet culture and destigmatising mental health struggles. Previously, she was the associate editor for Her Campus, where she oversaw the style and beauty news sections, as well as producing gift guides, personal essays and celebrity interviews. There, she worked remotely from Los Angeles, after returning from a three-month stint as an editorial intern for Cosmopolitan.com in New York. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, she interned at goop and C California Style and served as Her Campus' national style and LGBTQ+ editor. Iris was born and raised in France by a French father and an English mother. Her Spotify Wrapped is riddled with country music and One Direction, and she can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.