Meet Europe's first 'commoner' queens, who paved the way for Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle

• It was once considered rare for people without royal connections to marry royalty.
• Norway's Queen, Sweden's Queen, and Luxembourg's Grand Duchess were the first "commoner" queens.

Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton were both outsiders before they married into the British royal family.

Neither came from a royal or aristocratic background, and both women had regular jobs before becoming royal. As Insider previously reported, Middleton, the future queen consort, worked as an assistant accessories buyer at the fashion chain Jigsaw while Markle worked as an actor and starred in the TV series "Suits."

But individuals not born into high social ranking — otherwise known as "commoners," according to the Cambridge dictionary — weren't always accepted into royalty. That changed between 1968 and 1981, when a trio of outsiders — and future queens — married into royal families across Europe.

The first 'commoner' queens in Europe paved the way for Kate and Meghan

The first outsiders to marry into European families were Norway's Queen Sonja, who married King Harald in 1968, Sweden's Queen Silvia, who married King Carl XVI Gustaf in 1976, and Maria Teresa, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, who married the Grand Duke in 1981.

The Grand Duchess, whose title is the equivalent to Luxembourg's queen consort, previously said in an interview with Insider that they were the first to marry into a royal family without being born into one.

"I'm protective of this young generation and I think that we three were the first ones to open the doors to them to be able to make these choices," the Grand Duchess told Insider.

The Grand Duchess was born in Cuba, and the family relocated to New York while she was young, according to her biography on the royal website. While there, Maria Teresa was enrolled at a private bilingual French and American school.

While her parents didn't have royal heritage (her father worked in finance and her mother was a stay ay home mom), they had connections to the Luxembourg royal family. The Grand Duchess was introduced to the Grand Duke by their parents, she told Insider. They married in 1981, one year after the Grand Duchess obtained a degree in political sciences from the University of Geneva.

Unlike the Grand Duchess, the consorts that came before her faced opposition.

Queen Sonja and Queen Silvia weren't initially accepted

Queen Sonja, born Sonja Haraldse, married Norway's King Harald in 1968, at a time when it was rare for royals to marry non-royals, according to Royal Central. Sonja had no royal connections, and gained a degree in French, English, and art history at the University of Oslo before marrying the king.

The couple met at a party, according to the Daily Express, and dated for nine years before Harald was given permission to marry a "commoner," according to the Norwegian royal website.

Royal Central reports that she gained the approval of the monarch at the time, King Olav, after Harald vowed to never marry if he could not marry Sonja.

The couple's daughter, Princess Märtha Louise, previously told Insider that her mother "wasn't even accepted in the building" when she first arrived at the royal household. According to Märtha Louise, palace officials wouldn't allow Sonja to have an office, and they questioned her request to have her own staff.

The Norwegian public had an easier time accepting Sonja. According to her biography on the royal website, there was "far less resistance" to Harald "choosing a commoner" than the royal household had expected.

"The Norwegian people immediately accepted Crown Princess Sonja as a member of the Royal Family," the biography reads.

German-born Queen Silvia was known as Silvia Renate Sommerlath before she married into the Swedish royal family. She married King Carl XVI Gustaf in 1976 after meeting at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where she was working at the time, Royal Central reports. As a trained interpreter without royal or noble heritage, Silvia is the first Swedish queen to have had a professional job, according to the Swedish royal website.

The king waited to propose to Silvia until his accession to the throne so that he wouldn't have to seek approval to marry a non-royal, according to another report by the same publication. According to the Swedish royal website, it was "highly unusual" for royal weddings to include non-nobility at the time of their wedding.

Representatives for Queen Sonja of Norway and Queen Silvia of Sweden did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.