Princess Diana’s little known nickname
Much of the world knew her as Princess Di, but it turns out Princess Diana didn’t like that moniker – and in fact, much preferred another nickname.
According to one royal biographer, the Princess of Wales hated being called ‘Di’ so much, that she would playfully threaten anyone who used it.
“Diana was usually friendly and good-natured, but not when she was called Di,” Beatrice Gormley wrote in her 2005 book Diana Princess of Wales.
“’Say that again,’ she told her schoolmates, ‘and you die. I am Duchess. Duch’.”
Diana instead preferred to be called ‘Duch’ – and as we know, she became a royal duchess upon marrying Prince Charles.
In her recorded interviews with biographer Andrew Morton, Diana refers to herself as ‘Duch’ while recounting a conversation with her sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale.
“We were so angry, but my sister Sarah said, ‘Right Duch’ – my nickname was Duch – ‘You go in and sort him out’,” Diana said.
And she kept the nickname when she officially became the Duchess of Cornwall, as she again referred to herself by that nickname when recounting a conversation with sister-in-law Sarah ‘Fergie’ Ferguson.
“You mustn’t worry, Duch – everything is going to be fine. Let me do this, let me do that,” Diana quoted Fergie as saying.
Diana has also signed a palace Christmas cards from ‘Duch and Charles’.