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On Sun, 7/20/14, Freelance Traveller <editor@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:

 Subject: [TML] Naming patterns (was: Re:  Question)
 To: tml@simplelists.com
 Date: Sunday, July 20, 2014, 8:16 AM

 The British royal family does not have a surname, despite
 the widespread
 belief that it's "Windsor". They are the House of Windsor,
 true, but
 when Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was commissioned in
 the RAF, it
 was as "Lt. Wales", based on his father's title of Prince of
 Wales, not
 "Lt. Windsor". The royal House name has changed in
 comparatively recent
 times; at one time, prior to World War I, they were the
 House of
 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, later the House of Hannover, then the
 House of
 Hannover-Windsor, and when the Monarch formally renounced
 the title of
 Elector of Hannover (which was in abeyance since the Holy
 Roman Empire
 was disbanded), it was changed to House of Windsor.
 --
 Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
 Freelance Traveller
     The Electronic Fan-Supported
     Traveller╝ Fanzine and Resource
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The books that I've read, which may be out-of-date, c. 1970's, state that the House Of Hannover began when Queen Anne died in the early 1700's & and a law passed by parliament decreed that the Elector of Hannover would become George I. That House continued until a son of George III died w/o legitimate male issue & since the next-in-line was Victoria's deceased father, she ascended the throne under the Rules then in effect for the UK. She was the last 'Hannoverian' & when she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha the House name changed. Hannover (now a kingdom after the Congress of Vienna in 1815) had a different succession rule & so Victoria's uncle, another son of George III took that throne, which his descendants lost to Prussia after they took the side of the Austrians in the Seven Weeks War of 1866. Interesting, the Hannoverian line was also the junior line of Brunswick & when it became apparent early in the 20th century that the elderly
 current Duke of Brunswick was not going to produce an heir rendering the senior line extinct, a sort of conclave was convened & it was decided the the junior line would gain the throne. Sadly, though, WWI arrived & ended before the old Duke passed away so the junior line never did actually get to reign again. Back in the UK, there was an upsurge of anti-German sentiment during WWI resulting in a decree by George V that the ruling House of the UK would henceforth be known as The House of Windsor while the Prince of Battenberg renounced his german title & was granted the title of Lord Mountbatten. He was the father of the 'famous' Mountbatten of WWII fame. I believe that there may have been some other 'anglicizations' at that time also. Interestingly, if the old rules were still in effect, the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha would be ending w/ the current Queen & her son would initiate a new House based upon his father's heritage which, I believe, was Danish
 by way of Greece.

p.s. I've seen two different methods of 'house name changing' some charts indicate that House Name changed when Victoria was married, making her the first of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's, rather than the last of the Hannoverians. This would mean that, absent the 'House of Windsor' decree, the current monarch would be the first of a new house rather than the last of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

I also recall reading an article that stated that Victoria once called upon a group of scholars to determine what her surname should be but I don't remember if anything was actually decided upon.