Rather than being announced by a royal title, footage shared by journalist Wim Dehandschutter shows her called as “Elisabeth de Saxe-Cobourg,” the French form of the family name, which placed her earlier in the lineup than the Dutch version would have. The move echoed a common royal practice of using less formal names at school.
In her first major interview with Dehandschutter for the Dutch paper HNL, Elisabeth said she enjoyed not always being recognized in Boston and wanted to be simply Elisabeth while studying abroad. She described her studies as intense, plans to take time to develop personally, and said she is content knowing the path that leads to the throne — a role she will assume as Belgium’s first female monarch following an earlier change to the succession law.