Whoops, Jon Snow’s *real name* might have just been accidentally revealed

One of the long-running sagas of Game of Thrones revolves around Jon Snow’s mysterious name and parentage. As we’ve been told, once upon a time Ned Stark went off and had a child with someone other than his wife, Catelyn, and he returned home with this baby. While the baby was not *really* a Stark, he was raised a Stark, and given the surname of bastards in the North: Snow. Thus, Jon Snow.

HOWEVER, that’s not really what happened. Jon is not the son of Ned, but rather Ned’s sister, Lyanna. The events surrounding his birth are still a little foggy, but as we saw in the Game of Thrones Season 6 finale, “The Winds of Winter,” Lyanna gave birth to a boy, and Ned took him away for safety. Because — while still not truly confirmed — Jon is actually the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar Targaryen.

And if this turns out to be true, then Jon is actually a Targaryen and ACTUALLY THE RIGHTFUL HEIR TO THE IRON THRONE.

It’s not confirmed…but it might have accidentally just been confirmed while we’re still a solid 30 days before Game of Thrones returns. Empire magazine has a big Game of Thrones spread in an upcoming issue, where they drop a little tidbit about Bran…and in doing so, state — for the first time ever, as far as we know — Jon’s real name:

Jaehaerys Targaryen.

This makes sense. The Targaryen part we already kinda knew, thanks to thousands of fan theories and deep-dives into Reddit. As for that first name, it also kinda makes sense. It’s highly possible that Lyanna gave Jon a *very* Targaryen name, like Jaehaerys. Ned, not wanting to draw too much attention to this lil baby and his lineage, shortened Jaehaerys to Jon.

Once again, still not confirmed. However, it’s highly unlikely that Empire would print something that’s not true about the upcoming season. Hopefully we won’t know nothing about Jon Snow for too much longer.