With the first child of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex due to be born within the next two months, attention has turned to what he or she may be named.

The bookmakers have installed traditional names such as Albert and James for a boy, and Victoria and even Diana for a girl

It is common for royals to take names from members of their family tree, but could we see some unusual examples resurface from either parents distant relatives?

Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana would be a popular choice with many in tribute to Harry's late mother

Russell James, historian at ancestry.co.uk, believes this could be a possibility.

"When delving into someone's family tree, you never know what you're going to find, so it's always interesting to uncover names that may have been forgotten or would now be considered quite uncommon," he said.

"The royal family have often been associated with traditional names such as George, Henry or Victoria, but with Meghan's ancestry revealing names such as Ralph and Gertrude, predicting the name of the next royal baby remains a guessing game."

The birth date of the royal baby is expected to be between late April and early May

A more unusual option could be that of Gertrude, who appears twice in the ancestry of Meghan Markle in her maternal great-great-grandmother and paternal great-grandmother.

Her great-great-grandmother, a charity worker with the Good Samaritan Aid Society named Gertrude Sadler, was born in Georgia in 1882 and died in 1958.

Gertrude M Merril meanwhile was born on the side of Meghan's father Thomas Markle in 1887, and died in 1938.

Other notable relative names from Harry's lineage are Lancelot, Boniface, Marmaduke and Hyacinthe, while Meghan also has several Ralphs and an Ursula.

The most common names on both family trees proved to be Mary, John and Elizabeth.

The royal baby will be the seventh in line to the throne and the Queen's eighth great-grandchild.

Meghan, who herself is a descendant of both King Edward III, and King Henry VIII's third wife Jane Seymour, carried out her final official public engagement ahead of her due date with the Commonwealth Day service on Monday.

Mr James finished by adding: "Right back, Meghan was actually related to Jane Seymour, so the idea of Jane coming back into the royal family is quite interesting."

"If I was committing large amounts of money to it then I'd be going for maybe an Arthur, as one of the more traditional names.