Meghan Markle has been bestowed a new nickname by the team representing Nigeria at the Invictus Games this week, which includes one term that translates to “royal wife” and another meaning “blessed”.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are currently in Dusselforf, Germany, attending the paralympic sporting event for veterans that was founded by Prince Harry in 2014.
On Wednesday, the royal couple sat in the bleachers to watch a wheelchair basketball match between Ukraine and Australia at the Merkur Spiel-Arena, where they were cheering enthusiastically.
After the match, Harry and Meghan met members of the 10-person Nigerian contingent, who presented the couple with a plaque from Christopher Gwabin Musa, Nigeria’s chief of defence.
The team also gave Meghan a new nickname, Amira Ngozi Lolo, comprising three names from different regions. On Thursday, Duchess of Sussex, 42, watched a sitting volleyball match between Nigeria and Ukraine at the sixth edition of the Invictus Games in Düsseldorf, where she waved a Nigerian flag. The moment marked her latest show of support at the Invictus Games for Team Nigeria, which debuted as a new entrant this year alongside Colombia and Israel.
Meghan and Prince Harry, 38, enthusiastically followed the action at Merkur Spiel Arena, where they smiled for selfies with fellow attendees supporting the Nigerian team. While Harry — a British Army veteran and founding patron of the Invictus Games — famously stays neutral at the international adaptive sports tournament for service personnel and veterans, which he launched in 2014, he revealed in his opening ceremony speech that his wife is cheering for Nigeria.
“I’m not saying we play favorites at home, but since my wife discovered she’s of Nigerian descent, it’s likely to get a little bit more competitive this year,” Harry said.
In October 2022, the Duchess of Sussex revealed on her podcast, Archetypes, that she is 43% Nigerian through a genealogy test “a couple years ago.”
“I’m going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, are like ‘What!’ ” Meghan told her guest Ziwe.
The Invictus Games competition commenced on Sunday, and Meghan joined Harry there on Tuesday. She playfully apologized for being “a little late for the party” in a brief speech at the Family & Friends party that evening, explaining that she had been with their kids Prince Archie, 4, and Princess Lilibet, 2. Meghan made her tournament debut on Wednesday, where she spent time with the Nigerian team behind the scenes.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex posed with a photo with Team Nigeria and the national flag, and Hello! reported the squad presented them with a plaque from the Chief of Defense. Meghan was also gifted a little something extra — a new nickname. According to Hello!, she received the name “Amira Ngozi Lolo,” which bears a royal meaning. Amira is the name of a warrior princess from a legend, while Ngozi means “blessed” and Lolo means “royal wife.”
The former Suits star married Prince Harry in May 2018, and the newlyweds received their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles from Harry’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth as a wedding present. While the couple stepped back from their royal roles in the U.K. and relocated to Meghan’s home state of California in 2020, they retained their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles.
Meghan has stayed busy since arriving at the Düsseldorf games, where she’s watched many events with Harry, awarded gold medals to the U.S. wheelchair basketball team and attended a meeting with NATO representatives. Friday marks the last full day of competition, per the tournament schedule, and the sixth Invictus Games will conclude on Saturday with the closing ceremony.
