Kat Dennings Reveals She Chose Her Stage Name At Age 9 For Hilariously Silly Reasons
Considering that Kat Dennings likely chose her stage name in 1995, at least she didn't end up with, 'Topange Hocus Pocus Dunkaroo.'
The 'Switching Gears' star appeared on Kylie Kelce's podcast, 'Not Gonna Lie,' last week, and was asked about the meaning behind her stage name — and Dennings had an adorably unhinged answer.
The '2 Broke Girls' alum explained to Kelce that her real name is Katherine Litwack, and that she chose the stage name 'Kat Dennings' when she was just 9 years old.
'My real last name is Litwack — that's all you need to hear,' she joked, before continuing.
'At 9, I was like, 'This isn't going to work for me. This is not going to work,'' Dennings said, mocking her younger self. 'She-slash-I was very ahead of her time. It was a CEO situation. I was like, 'This can't be displayed on a poster. It shant happen!''
The 'Thor' alum then explained that she got the idea for her last name while visiting with a family friend, children's fantasy author Lloyd Alexander, who is best known for his 'Chronicles of Prydain' series.
'Randomly, he was my mother's best friend,' Dennings explained. 'So I went there every week until I was 15 years old, and they were like my grandparents, he and his wife. So, his wife's name was Janine Denni, she was French. …And I thought it would be a super sick idea if I took her name and made it kinda different. Literally, that was the thinking. That's as far as it went. So 'Dennings' is from her.'
Most would assume that Dennings got 'Kat' from her own name, which is Katherine.
But no. There's a very silly reason why she landed on 'Kat' as well.
She explained that Christina Ricci's character in the 1995 film 'Casper' was named Kat, and she was Denning's 'favorite character at the time.'
'So I was like, 'OK, Kat Dennings. This is it, I can really picture it.'' she said. 'It's insane.'
As whimsical as her choices were, Kat Dennings isn't a bad name stage for a kid to come up with. It could have been way worse.
Kristen Bell, for instance, admitted during a 2015 appearance on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' that when she was a kid, she 'hated' her first name and took it upon herself to change it.
'When I was about 3 1/2, I said, 'No more! You will call me 'Smurfette' or nothing at all!'' Bell recalled to Kimmel.
Bell explained that her parents didn't take her decision very seriously, until she refused to answer to anything other than 'Smurfette.'
'So, they sat me down and said, 'This isn't going to fly.' And I said, 'Fair enough, my name is now Matthew.''
Bell's parents weren't feeling that name, either. So, Bell said they eventually agreed to use the name 'Annie' from the titular role from the musical 'Annie.'
'And I was called 'Annie' by my whole family until I was 16,' Bell explained. 'My grandparents still call me Annie.'
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