What’s in a Name? Why We Should Call People What They Want To Be Called

I'm a Catherine, and I don't want my name shortened to Kate or to be called by my maiden name either.

Kate Middleton Catherine, Princess of Wales

I’m going to name someone who’s been in the news a lot just recently.

(And not just the news but in MUCH social media commentary, of which very little was positive: Kate Middleton.)

Or, as she’s mostly referred to in most newspaper headlines, Kate. Sometimes Princess Kate.

I’m WINCING.

Not just at the treatment she’s suffered at the hands of the baying press and social media or the horrendous time the poor girl has had lately in terms of her health. For this, I’m just focusing on her name, and I know - it’s the least of her worries right now. She’s just the perfect example for today’s tongue-in-cheek rant of choice.

Whilst I can already hear cries of “Oh, get a life…”, I can tell you that any time I hear Catherine, Princess of Wales, referred to as Kate (and even worse, Kate Middleton), it grates on me NO END. I make no apologies for the fact that I can’t bear hearing her referred to as Kate Middleton when she hasn’t been Middleton for 13 years.

I say this as a Catherine myself. If ever someone shortens my name without my permission, they’ll quickly be corrected. (If they ARE polite enough to ask if I shorten my name to Kate or Cathy or anything else, I’ll just appreciatively reply with “No, I’m Catherine”.)

Now, on the off-chance that anyone who used to go to school or college with me in the early 90s is reading this (er, hi!), then I’m 100% certain that they’re now shouting at their screen, “ER, HANGONAMINUTE?! You were known as ‘Cat’ by literally everyone back in the day?!!”

Yes. Yes, I was. I don’t remember anyone (I stress friends, not family) calling me Catherine, ever. My “college days” name was Cat. There were three reasons for this:

1. When I was at secondary school, there were 5 Catherines in my class (of 30 girls). In my year (roughly 100 girls), there were 10 Catherines. I don’t know if this is exactly true, but I reckon that because the non-Catherines were so fed up with half the school responding to “Catherine!” that they gave us all different monikers. I ended up with Cat.

2. It was (by the time the name stuck) the 90s. Everything got… grungey. So the name Catherine just didn’t fit the aesthetic of the day, and I was probably conscious about it being a little too middle-class for a group of grubby¹ art college students doing a photography degree to call someone Catherine. Cat - I will admit - was a better fit at the time.

3. I was about 18 when Cat was first used, and unlike now, I just didn’t have the confidence (sass?) at the time to correct people. And as I didn’t nip it in the bud straight away - as my mother would have wanted me to do - it stuck.

Ergo, I was known as Cat by everyone in my circle of friends for several years. Deep down, I didn’t particularly like it. I didn’t mind it for a while, but I never loved being called Cat. Despite having two sisters whose what-everyone-calls-them names were shortened versions of their birth names (Penny/Penelope and Vickie/Victoria), my parents never shortened Catherine to Cathy, Kate or similar. In fact, it was my mother who would get VERY uptight if anyone ever called me Cathy: those poor unfortunate souls were given short shrift and an immediate correction (see point 3, above).

As you can imagine, I didn’t really tell her that my friends called me Cat.

But it’s inevitable that long names often get shortened - especially at school - and it can be hard for parents to control what their kids are called by their friends. I was an adult, I’d left home, I guess I liked being a little different with “Cat” at first, considering the fact that I had The Most Common Name In My Class at school.

The novelty soon wore off. The straw that broke the camel’s back was being called Cat by a friend’s parents around the time of graduation, the time that all parents show up and meet their offspring’s friends. I’d only ever been talked about by my friend to her parents as Cat - why would she say Catherine? - so of course, that’s what they called me when we met.

Coming from a friend’s parents, it was like nails down a blackboard. I just didn’t feel like it suited me, especially when it was used by the older generation.

I graduated. I left college. I got my first grown-up job. I promised myself from then on, I would be known as Catherine, nothing else. I never said to anyone ever again that my name was Cat.

“But William calls her Kate”

Now, I’m not professing to know what William calls Catherine. Or what her family call her. Or what Queen Elizabeth called her (though I’ll bet my bum it wasn’t Kate).

But like me deciding to put my own moniker to bed, Catherine stopped using Kate publically. (Did she ever use Kate since openly being “Prince William’s girlfriend” I wonder? I don’t know, because I’ve never met her socially and don’t believe anything that’s said in the papers or online by people who say they know.)

I eventually didn’t like being called Cat. However, I never corrected old friends from my art college days as they’d never known me as anything else. But your friends change over time, and the ones I’m still in contact with from college respected my wish to retire Cat enough to force Catherine out of themselves when they remembered (bless ‘em)… but it sounded funny coming from them. I’ve never really minded when they call me by my former nickname. I have other nicknames that they (and only they) tend to use instead. But I know they’d never introduce me to a third party as anything other than Catherine now.

Back to princesses.

It seems (from what’s presented to us in the media, which we should always take with a hefty pinch of salt) that “Kate” is now known as Catherine. That’s what she’s always referred to in all statements from the palace. Maybe, in private, William calls her Catherine, maybe he calls her Kate, maybe he calls her Honey Boo-Boo. I don’t care.

But just because “William called her Kate” (the most common reason that’s quoted by keyboard warriors for constantly using Kate), it doesn’t mean that she STILL wants to be called that (like me not wanting to be Cat anymore). We’re allowed to change our minds about what we like to be called.

I could be wrong, but I’m sure he hasn’t referred to her as Kate publically since they got married. Maybe he called her Kate at university because everyone else did? Maybe she didn’t like it at the time? Maybe when they got engaged she said to him, “Look, Honey Boo-Boo Willy darling, do you think you could call me Catherine in public from now on as I’m just not comfortable being Kate considering I’m the future Queen of England?!”²

Talking of queens of England, I guess you *could* come at me with “Well what about Katherine of Aragon, Katherine Howard or Katherine Parr? Or Anne Boleyn? We don’t refer to them as Queen Katherine or Queen Anne, do we, because: which one do you mean?” Okay, I’ll give you that one. Yes, we refer to THEM by their names before their marriages to Henry VIII, but that’s due to historical confusion over every woman and their handmaiden being called Katherine (sound familiar?) at the time.

But to be fair, I don’t think William V - assuming he goes with that regnal name - will be challenging the marriage-happy Henry in the wedding department. (Or the beheading department, for that matter.) But time will tell, I guess, whether our future queen will be remembered in history as Queen Catherine or Kate Middleton. She might be another “Queen Mother” one day, who knows.

Henry VIII, his six creepy, melting AI wives and a random lover in the background

With regards to her maiden name being constantly used alongside Kate, I’m sure most of us (who’ve changed our name after marriage or for any other reason) would find it irritating that our former surname takes precedence in any context. I’ve been married twice and changed my surname both times, but many people knew me only by my first married name for a while. That surname, unsurprisingly, has negative connotations for me.

My full name is (now) Catherine Summers. Let’s say my first married name was Robinson (it wasn’t). If someone didn’t bother with the new married name and also took the liberty of shortening my first name, then that would make me… Cat Robinson.

Who on earth is Cat Robinson?! I’m Catherine Summers. Sure, I’ve been Cat and I’ve been Robinson, but if someone called out CAT ROBINSON? in the doctor’s waiting room, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. That’s some other person, not me.

Don’t call me Auntie, either

What I’m saying is that I think we should have the good grace to call people what they want to be called. Sure, nicknames develop organically (or at least they SHOULD, there’s nothing worse than a forced nickname) and most of us have had nicknames from friends and family that either wear off over time, or are only used within that circle, or completely replace the name we were given at birth entirely. But nicknames are usually fun and lighthearted and different from simply shortening names.

Could you imagine Vicky Beckham (who?) or her husband Dave Beckham? Both sound all sorts of wrong. And I’m sure many people were corrected if or when they were ever called Vicky or Dave to their faces.

(I’m sorry, but I’m stifling a laugh to think about the Beckhams being called Dave and Vicky.)

And as well as shortening names, there’s the “names for relatives” conundrum. But it shouldn’t be a conundrum at all, because if someone’s aunt and uncle - let’s say Edna and Arthur - asked to be called Aunt Edna and Uncle Arthur, then that should be respected. It’s their choice.

Likewise, I became an aunt at the tender age of 14, and have NEVER wanted to be called Auntie Catherine. My nieces and nephews respected that - though it didn’t stop me from obtaining various weird nicknames (the organic nicknames I mentioned earlier) due to the difficulty of toddlers trying to say the name CATH-ER-INE. If I was ever called Auntie Catherine to my face now, they’d get a highly amused “Er, who are you calling Auntie?!” and I’d giggle at how ridiculous it sounds.

I’m not Auntie Catherine. Auntie Catherine is not me. I’m not down with being called “Auntie”. It’s just my preference.

But shortening someone’s name without permission - or calling them something that they’ve never hinted at, or refusing to call them by the name they’ve said is their preference - is just bad-mannered in my eyes.

Short story: I know someone (I’ll change names and call them Dipsy) who was told by a parent that they must call a particular relative “Teletubby”, not “Po” - daft reasons for which I shan’t go into. That’s despite Po asking to be called their chosen name by the younger, relevant members of the family (where a first name wasn’t appropriate). One day, another young family member, Tinky Winky - who was born abroad - came over to spend time with the family and (for the first time) heard Dipsy calling Po the generic name of Teletubby.

Dipsy, to Po: Teletubby, can I have a drink please?
Tinky Winky: WHO THE HELL IS TELETUBBY? DO YOU MEAN PO??!!
The room:

Don’t mess with these Teletubbies

Up to that point, Po had kept quiet about always being called Teletubby (by Dipsy) instead of their preferred Po, and it was awkward. If only Po had corrected them early on, or Dipsy’s parent hadn’t insisted on this other name that wasn’t theirs to choose, then there wouldn’t have been this awkwardness. Every time this family heard “Teletubby”, everyone thought, “Who?!”

Moral of the story: don’t be a Dipsy (or rather, Dipsy’s parent). Be respectful. Call them Po if they ask you to. Because to not do that - to call someone something that YOU choose for them - could make them uncomfortable. The name you choose could have negative connotations for them.

We might never know why someone wants to be called X, and it’s not for us to ask or try to find out³. To us it’s just another name, but to them, it’s their identity and (sometimes) their safe space. So we should call them by what makes them feel comfortable, safe, joyful, and respected. It’s their choice, not ours.

So pfffft to Kate Middleton references and articles. I KNOW it’s a search engine optimisation thing to put her maiden name in the headline, but it still doesn’t stop me from grinding my teeth over it. But BBC news, broadsheet newspapers and TV documentaries calling her Kate? COME ON.

If I ever had the good fortune to meet our future queen one day, I sure as shit won’t be calling her Kate. (More likely I’ll need to address her as “Your Royal Highness” as I can’t see us becoming BFFs for any reason, but a girl can dream.)

I’ll be all, “From one Catherine to another, I got your back.” And if she replies with, “No, no, please call me Kate…”, I’ll go get the Nirvana records out, admit defeat and wallow in a nineties-style existential crisis.

1. I say “grubby” as a term of endearment… the early 90s was the perfect time to be a creative as we all just wore black layers and Doc Martens to hide the messes we made (photo chemicals for me). Grunge was perfectly timed for nineties art students.

2. No need to correct me on the inaccuracy of “Queen of England”, I know the British monarch is “of the United Kingdom”, etc. etc. Some poetic licence allows it to be read a little less clunkily. Though I do like the idea of Catherine boldly telling herself “One day I will be Queen of all England!” in the bathroom mirror. Don’t tell me YOU wouldn’t.

3. Unless your name is Elon, and you want to change the name of something everyone once liked but now hates because you bought it and messed it up big time. A little birdy told me you made it X-tra heinous.