He was baptized Prince Henry Charles Albert David by the Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1984.
But Prince Charles and Princess Diana made it clear from the start that their newborn son would be called Harry.
Charles once revealed that he was only called Henry when he was “very, very naughty”.
And it turned out that this happened quite frequently.
Harry, who turns 40 today, stepped out of line on several occasions during his youth, and those antics would be reflected in his behavior as a teenager and young adult.
Former police bodyguard Ken Wharfe recalled how he regularly heard Diana berate Harry with the words: “Henry, no!”
Prince Harry, nearly four, sticks his tongue out at photographers after being taken to see his newborn cousin Princess Beatrice, 1988
Prince Charles appears to speak sternly into his son’s ear at a polo match in Cirencester, 1990
While on holiday with his mother and brother on Richard Branson’s Caribbean island of Necker in 1990, the young man hit his brother with a pool cue.
On another occasion, she forged her babysitter’s handwriting in an attempt to trick her family’s chef, Darren McGrady, into making her pizza for dinner instead of roast chicken.
Harry also stuck his tongue out at photographers from the back of his family car after being driven to see newborn Princess Beatrice in 1988.
And, when he was five or six, he walked out of the grounds of Kensington Palace before using a police radio given to him by Inspector Wharfe and saying from nearby Kensington High Street: “I’m outside Tower Records.”
On her sixth birthday, she placed her hand over the mouth of her two-year-old cousin, Princess Beatrice, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace as the Royal Family gathered to watch the Battle of Britain 50th Anniversary Parade.
His pranks were so frequent that his nanny described him as “Kamikaze Harry.”
At the age of eight, Harry locked himself in a train toilet and then ignored his mother’s pleas for him to open the door.
Prince Harry jogging after Easter Sunday service in Windsor, April 1992
He also liked fart cushions and enjoyed taking apart his parents’ stereo at Highgrove and then watching their faces when they turned it on and nothing happened.
A spokesman said shortly after Harry’s birth: ‘He will of course be christened Henry, but afterwards he will be Harry.
“Centuries of tradition are at stake. Parents follow a very ancient royal practice.”
Henry was the name given to eight English kings, the last being the tyrannical King Henry VIII.
Prince Charles’s closest other relative named Henry was his great-uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, who died in 1974.
Before Harry’s birth, bookmakers reported that the favourites for the new royal name were George at 6-4, followed by Philip at 5-2.
According to his biographer Mark Saunders, Harry was said to enjoy the story of King Henry II, who ordered the murder of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
He also loved the passionate battlefield speech in William Shakespeare’s Henry V that ended: “Cry, ‘God for Henry! England and St. George!'”
Prince Harry at age five at Cirque Du Soleil, August 1990
As he grew older, Harry’s antics escalated into more serious incidents, such as when he confessed to smoking cannabis at age 16 and as a result, his father ordered him to visit a drug rehabilitation clinic.
And, in an incident that made headlines at the time, Harry went to a fancy dress party in 2005 dressed as a Nazi.
The 20-year-old attended a friend’s birthday party with Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The theme of the event was “indigenous and colonial.”
Harry was wearing the desert uniform of General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps.
In his 2022 Netflix series, Harry opened up about his dramatic faux pas, saying: ‘It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
“I felt very embarrassed afterwards.”
In 2012, Harry was photographed playing ‘strip pool’ in his Las Vegas hotel suite with a group of naked women.
The images went around the world and raised questions about the actions of his security agents.
