I'd heard about the proposed "royal" name, and read articles in really old ACR mags about it - they also showed some of the mock-up artwork made with the name - but wasn't aware of the extent of the "controversy" about it at the time.
As divisive as the name might have been, "royal" would have had the advantage of being unique. The only other country in the 20th century to use that word for a coinage denomination was Gibraltar, and they didn't start using it until 1990.
My favourite alternative currency unit name, of the list of names proposed back then, is "austral". This, too, would have been unique, and much less... colonial. That name's been ruined now, of course: during their period of hyperinflation following the loss of the Falklands War, Argentina briefly used the "austral" currency name (1985-1991).
Wikipedia.
