According to the Wikipedia entry, which obviously pulled from some authoritative source--because, let's face it, after a while, you just can't keep making this stuff up--there are 873 people in the line of succession to the throne of England, including HM The Queen herself.
Between them, there are about 10,000 names, including just about every English, German (Queen Victoria and co were German, after all), and Russian-sounding aristo name imaginable. Thanks to Queen Victoria, the list ropes in the royal families of half a dozen other countries (including Greece, which gave its royals the boot a generation ago, sorry to bring that up, Pavlos.) The only thing missing is Catholics, since being or marrying a Catholic makes you ineligible for the big job. Who knows, you may already be on there?
Line of succession to the British Throne [wikipedia.org]
Yes, it must be very amusing for the rest of the world to see that someone has a chance (however small) of 'ascending' to the English throne by accident of birth, but spare a thought for the humble taxpayer such as myself who has to pay for some of these inbred chinless freaks to swan around wiping their arses with gold toilet paper. I can't believe my ancestors, who lived in the world era when it was fashionable to topple a monarchy just because you had nothing to do on a saturday, passed up the opportunity.
[but I thought only a handful at the very top got any state money. They mention the inbred thing, though: "Due to the propensity of British monarchs to marry their cousins, it is often the case that the consorts of monarchs are also in the line of succession." -ed.]
Quite contrary to Duncan, I believe that royals serve a very modern, functional purpose in the present day. We have royalty in Sweden/Norway/Denmark and I think that on average, we are very proud and supportive of our monarchs. Of course, on a scale of grandeur, ours don't rank with the British or Japanese.
PS - no such thing as a humble tax-payer!
[and the Swedes and Norges are on the list. If only the 200 or so people ahead of them somehow keeled over all at once, England'd be singing "God Save King Haakon (or Gustav)" -ed.]
Or, respectively, Carl Gustaf (sverige) and Harald V (norge).
I think the entire population of Iceland might be included considering most of the banished Norwegian Royals fled and settled Iceland when Norway was united under one king!
Heh. Number 487 is a "Maddison" (born 1994). Not even European aristocracy was immune to that trend.