Straight ‘A’s for royal family with Ariane

The new Dutch princess has been named Ariane Wilhelmina Máxima Ines. Crown prince Willem-Alexander announced the names when he went to register the new baby’s birth at the town hall in The Hague on Friday morning.


The baby, born on Tuesday evening, is the third daughter for the crown prince and princess Máxima and will be fourth in line to the throne behind her father and sisters Amalia and Alexia.
‘After two ‘A’s we wanted to go for the triple-A rating,’ the prince said. Amalia and Alexia were also only told their new sister’s name on Friday morning, the prince said.
The princess’s first name Ariane comes from Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos who helped Theseus escape from the labyrinth. Wilhelmina is for Willem-Alexander’s great-grandmother and Ines is the name of Máxima’s youngest sister. The princess also has the formal titles princess of the Netherlands and princess of Orange-Nassau.
During the registration ceremony, acting mayor Jetta Klijnsma said that all children had the right to live in justice, freedom and security. She welcomed the new princess as a ‘citizen of the world’.
The village of Velp has become the first to name a road after the new princess. Within an hour of the name being made public, the mayor unveiled a street sign, ANP reported.
The website www.princessariane.com is already being worked on. The homepage has a photograph of a tiara and the words ‘coming soon’.

Photos of the naming ceremony

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