The amazingness behind Nicole Richie's daughter going by “Kate” and not Harlow

This story just, it tickles me. For two different reasons, I think:

Lainey was amused his morning over the revelation that Nicole Richie's daughter goes by “Kate”, as opposed to her presumed first name, Harlow. “But I guess when you’re a kid you don’t want to stand out”, she wrote to me.

Which… no kidding. The names I used to write about as people debated the possibilities are now fully-formed teens and tweens and children walking around, and they most definitely have their own ideas about what names are cool and which aren’t – no matter how (formerly) cool the parents who gave the names were.

Remember that clip floating around several months ago where Maya Rudolph explained that her kids responded to the idea she was cool, now or before, with a ‘yeah, yeah’ and an eyeroll? It’s impossible to us, but I’m quite sure the same is true for the teen Formerly Known As Harlow Winter Kate. That you could say, ‘Not only were your parents the epitome of late-aughts millennial love, there were entire brands and name trends based on your very cool name, you were a moment in time’, and the kid would just shrug and go, “Who? Whatever. I’m Kate.”

I LOVE IT.

I love it because it underscores the magic and the futility of names, all at once: parents choose to bestow what they think is the best name for their kid, but the kid is going to do with that what they will, whether that’s eschewing Rebecca for ‘Beck’ or resolutely going by a middle name, or any other technique that makes their self-image and their interpretation of their name much more important than whatever dreams their parents had for little Persephone or Balthazar.

The other reason I love this, though, is a suspicion I had about Kate’s cousin some years ago:

When Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden announced the name of their daughter, Raddix Madden, I just… come on. I dunno. I couldn’t get behind it, but more than that, I didn’t buy it. It seemed needlessly performative and ‘celeb-esque’ for a couple who were pretty notably committed to being under the radar.

And unlike, say, North West, it’s not like they’re out here taking Raddix to events all the time. So while I could be wrong, and maybe your little Arden or Oscar just invited Raddix to their birthday party, I started to suspect that maybe the biggest gift they could give their child, especially in the recent past where celebrity kids weren’t seen as off limits, was anonymity.

That is, if you tell everyone your child is called Raddix, and unscrupulous photographers yell out that name at a group of preschoolers…

…well, if your kid has always gone by Anna, for example, then they’re not going to turn their head and be unwittingly photographed, are they?

My point is illustrated in the PEOPLE post above, where Nicole Richie said, about Kate: “Yeah, she goes by her middle name… she has her whole life.” Which… you follow me, right?

I know what I said above about kids making names their own. But if you’re called ‘Harlow’ every day all day, I’m sure you’d identify either with it, or with parts of it, maybe you’d prefer to be called Lowe, or Lolo, or even Lolly, if you didn’t like Harlow, but something in the vicinity.

If, on the other hand, you’re an 18-year-old who’s always gone by ‘Kate’, it stands to reason that’s what you were always called, right? You wouldn’t start going by your second middle name unless you felt it was a possibility… or if it was always the name you used among family and friends. Almost like ‘Harlow Winter’ was just stage dressing to give you a little anonymity…?

Either way, the moral of the story is – you know that expression, “Humans plan, God laughs”? I feel like kids are the walking talking exemplar of this every single day, and it kills me and delights me at the same time. Nice work, Kate.