The newest addition to the royal family last December, a dog for Prince William and Kate Middleton, was not the addition -   a baby - that everyone had been hoping for. But at least the dog now has a name.

The black cocker spaniel puppy with big floppy ears first seen publicly trotting next to the royal couple on the shores of North Wales in early January is named Lupo, derived from the Latin word for wolf.

The Duchess of Cambridge herself let the news slip while meeting with kids in an art therapy session at the Rose Hill Primary School in Oxford, southern England.  The school is a beneficiary of The Art Room, one of the charities Middleton, 30, announced in January that she would patron.

Lisa Hancock, manager of the school's art room, told the Telegraph the children had selected a toy dog in advance for Middleton to hold during the lesson.

"She said 'What's it called?' and we said 'Would you like to give it a name?' And she said, 'I will call it after my dog,'" recounted Hancock, who could only later remember that the name began with an "L."

Following the event a spokesman for St. James's Palace, which had previously refused to provide the dog's name, citing the royal couple's privacy, confirmed the name as Lupo.

The Telegraph reports the months-old puppy is the son of a dog belonging to Middleton's mom, Carole Middleton.

The puppy was speculated to be a 30 th birthday last month gift to Kate from Prince William, who grew up with a black lab named Widgeon.

Middleton, a well-known animal lover who won praise recently from animal rights activists for opting out of the royal family's Boxing Day pheasant shoot, is taking care of Lupo on her own while her prince is nearly 8,000 miles away on a six-week Royal Air Force deployment in the Falkland Islands.