The 'Ocean's 8' actress says 'there was nothing pretty' about her own first name and she doesn't want her daughter ends up hating her own moniker like mom does.
- January 21, 2021
AceShowbiz - Mindy Kaling named her daughter Katherine, so - unlike mum - she could pick a cool nickname when she gets older.
The actress/writer's birth name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam and she opted to use her second name when she became a teenager because there was nothing pretty about 'Vera.'
So when it came to naming her first child in 2017, she opted for something her daughter could work with.
"Katherine is such a beautiful name, because it has all these possibilities for nicknames," the former "The Office" star tells Access Daily. "She can go by Katie, she can go by Kate - whatever she wants. It gives some versatility for her."
"My first name is Vera and there's zero nicknames for zero."
Mindy calls her daughter Kit, adding, "I think of it as a journalist's name... and it's just such a fun, tomboyish nickname."
Mindy gave birth to her daughter Katherine in December 2017. She chose not to reveal the identity of the baby's father. Her former "The Office" co-star B.J. Novak, whom she dated on and off for years, is the godfather of her daughter.
In a 2019 interview with Glamour, she opened up about her decision to privately parent her child, "It's really essential to my life that there be something not everybody knows about. That's a boundary, but it's a very small boundary. Everything else I really don't have any issue sharing."
Mindy also talked about raising Katherine as a single mother, "She just has me." She went on sharing, "I know at some point I will have to do less, because it's not like there's a dad at home picking up some of the slack. I think that's another reason I work so hard; because I know that when she gets a little bit older, I want to be able to take off more time to spend with her."
In 2020, she gave birth to son Spencer and also kept the baby daddy secret.
