B-b-but I saw on the TV show Bridgerton that British aristocracy...

[TreasonousBastard]

5. They don't even admit that their family name is Saxe-Coberg und Gotha. And the Prince had...

to take the Windsor name because he was born into the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.

He changed his name to Montbatten, but the Royal Tonguewaggers didn't like that either because it came from his grandfather, Prince Louis of Battenberg, a small town in Hesse.

All good German stock.

all of this goes back to the Royal insistence that royalty could only marry other royalty, and marriages were often as not arranged for political purposes. As would be expected the gene pool of royals got pretty shallow, so genetics got the best of some of them.

None of European royalty, the few who are left, have much, if any say in governing. They get trotted out for state celebrations. None of the others, though, spend what the Brits do.

BTW, the Japanese Emperor's throne goes back to 686 BC. They don't let him do much, either.