'Commoner' bride Kate not uncommon among royals: Study

"Barely one in four princes worldwide today marry fellow royals, reveals the study of 107 royal romances since World War II, while just one in 17 European princes do so," says the study by social networking site Badoo.com.

"Indeed, nearly three-quarters of European princes now marry commoners, rather than royals or aristocrats," the study says. "British royals, in other words, are finally becoming more European in their approach to marriage."

Badoo's researchers studied 107 serious romances involving princes worldwide since 1945. They came from 30 countries, 33 royal families and four continents, said the site while releasing the study to coincide with Middleton's wedding with Prince William.

A surprising number of royal brides also resemble Kate in having first met their prince at university. No less than 10 percent of the 107 relationships like that of Kate and William were found to have begun as students -- nine at university, two at school.

The figure for European princes is even higher at 12 percent.

Nor is Kate's humble background uncommon. While Kate went to an elite school and has wealthy parents, Princess Letizia of Spain has working-class parents, while Princess Tessy of Luxembourg is the daughter of a tiler, the site said.

"There's been much fuss about Kate being a commoner," said Lloyd Price, Badoo's director of Marketing. "But the truth is, our study shows, that she is more typical than rare among recent European royal brides."

Some of the key findings of the study are:

- Almost three-quarters of royal romances have been with commoners
- Just 6 percent have been with fellow royals
- Nearly 63 percent have been with a woman of a different nationality
- As many as 12 percent started as student romances
- A nearly equal number of 13 percent of such romances started via sport or pastimes
Has any woman, so far, yet met a prince using Badoo.com? "Not as far as we know," said Price. "But it must only be a matter of time."