So there's a YouTube Vidoe that fully breaks down the History of the title "Prince of Wales".
And one thing I realized is this is largely the origin of the use of the English Word Prince as we know it entirely. And one major point is when certain Welsh rulers started using the Title it was due to it's connection to the Ancient Roman Imperial title of Princeps viewed as outranking the title of King.
On the show The Tudors set well after all that history you'll notice that a King can also be called a Prince even while they are a Ruling King. Machiavelli's book titled The Prince was always intended to be about a status equal to that of a King not inherently lesser.
Princess is the feminine form of Prince, even though we all know that we fail to think of it the same since Reissuance Germany and Italy never had any ruling Princesses, all the states called Principalities always had male rulers.
Yet at the end of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra the Queen Cleopatra is called a Princess by her handmaiden. This was based on a quote taken from Plutarch's biography of Marc Anthony.
When translating The Hebrew Bible into English multiple words get translated "Prince", most notably Sar, Nagyim and Nasi, and the only uses of "Princess" in the KJV are the feminine form of Sar, Sarah. However the use of "King" in these translations is more consistent always being a form of Melek. Yet I remember being told once that at least Assyrian Sources definitely thought of Sar as being a higher ranked title then Melek. In fact the oldest version of "King of Kings" seems to Sar Sarrani, the Melek version came later. And none of these Prince words are ever used in The Bible with the meaning of "Son of a King".
And yet because Princess in modern dictionaries gets defined as meaning only a Daughter of a King/Queen or Wife of a Prince, lots of Internet Nerds get all pedantic about certain Nintendo characters being called Princess when they are also clearly presented as being the ruling Monarch. Princess Peach/Toadstool, Princess Zelda in some eras of the "Timeline", Princess Daisy. And I think we even see it beyond Nintendo in some other Video Game Franchises like Final Fantasy.
A lot of this could be read as just making fun of Nintendo's very make it up as they go world building. The NES Games never thought about about how the world works beyond the handful of Sprites we actually see, and then later games with more needed worldbuilding didn't want to make the female leads of these franchises subordinate to someone else. But I also think it's a little influenced by Star Wars where Leia was still called a Princess after her Parents were dead.
But occasionally someone says this with a more serious criticism in mind, that it demeans or infantilizes these characters who are actually Queens to call them the same title we do Disney Princesses. But I say just remember how the English word Prince originated. I would rather not see Zelda or Peach or Daisy ever demoted to being a mere Queen.
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