Caroline Kennedy's Real Name: Caroline Bouvier Kennedy

Quick answer: Caroline Kennedy's real name is Caroline Bouvier Kennedy. She was born on November 27, 1957, in New York City.

Real name and early life

The U.S. State Department's Office of the Historian lists her as Caroline Bouvier Kennedy. Bouvier is her mother's maiden name. She is the daughter of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, and she is their only surviving child. Her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1999.

She spent her early childhood in the White House and was nearly six when her father was assassinated in November 1963. Biography.com notes that she graduated from Radcliffe College and earned a law degree at Columbia. She married designer Edwin Schlossberg, whom she met while working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but has kept the Kennedy name publicly.

Quick facts

• Real name: Caroline Bouvier Kennedy
• Known as: Caroline Kennedy
• Born: November 27, 1957, in New York City
• Known for: Author, attorney, and diplomat
• Sources checked: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Biography.com, ABC News (Australia)

Career highlights

Much of Kennedy's career has been in writing, editing, law, education reform, and charity. She has written and edited several books on civil liberties, poetry, and her family's history.

In politics she endorsed Barack Obama early in the 2008 race. President Obama appointed her US ambassador to Japan, and she served from 2013 to 2017. President Biden named her ambassador to Australia in 2022. ABC News reported her farewell address at the National Press Club in November 2024, at the end of that posting.

Name notes

Her legal married surname is not used publicly, and press, government, and library records all use Caroline Bouvier Kennedy or Caroline Kennedy. Fan sites often copy names from one another, so we checked this page against U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian and Biography.com. Where sources disagree, we say so rather than guess. We also leave out middle names, nicknames, and origin stories that we couldn't confirm in a reliable source. A popular claim isn't enough to earn a place on this page if no encyclopedia, official record, or major news outlet backs it up.