Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's surname will be changed once more.

Buckingham Palace is set to rename the former prince, weeks after announcing his new last name.

Having been officially stripped of his titles and renamed as an ordinary citizen last month in the wake of allegations about his friendship with convicted paedophile and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, the 65-year-old had opted to use the unhyphenated "Mountbatten Windsor" as his new surname.

However, official documents suggest the double-barrelled last name - which was first introduced in 1960 to accommodate Prince Phillip's German surname, Mountbatten - is historically hyphenated, and it was his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II's, preference.

Royal historian Ian Llloyd told The Times he had been "surprised" at the announcement in October of Andrew's new, unhyphenated name.

"I was quite surprised when the Palace statement came out giving Andrew's name without a hyphen, given the historic precedent for one," he told the newspaper.

"Prince Philip had complained that he was 'the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children', which made him 'nothing but a bloody amoeba'.

"The late Queen's privy council declaration, therefore, was a way in which the name Mountbatten could be preserved for future generations."

"Despite everything that has gone on, I expect that Prince Philip might at least be pleased to know that the Mountbatten name lives on."

Several other family members, including Princess Anne, 75, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's six-year-old son, Archie Harrison, use Mountbatten-Windsor, with a hyphen, as a surname.