Kat Dennings's Real Name: Kat Dennings

Quick answer: Kat Dennings's professional and public name is Kat Dennings. She was born on June 13, 1986. The Philadelphia Inquirer describes her as being from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; a Library of Congress name-authority note lists Philadelphia as the birthplace. A longer form of the name appears in some catalog notes, but it is not independently confirmed in the newspaper profile used here, so this page uses the public name. She became widely known as a waitress on the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress files her as "Dennings, Kat, 1986-," with notes giving the birth date as June 13, 1986. One of those notes also records a longer name; because that expansion is not corroborated by the Inquirer profile, it is not used in the title.

In an August 2011 Inquirer piece, published as she prepared to star in 2 Broke Girls, Dennings described a home-schooled childhood in Bryn Mawr. She called herself "a home-schooled kid living in the forest," then added that it was "a civilized forest, in Bryn Mawr." She said her family did not have much money and that she was not allowed to watch television except for PBS programs such as Sesame Street. She borrowed classic films from the library.

Career highlights

The Inquirer says her first paid acting job outside commercials came at age 14, in a guest appearance on Sex and the City for executive producer Michael Patrick King, in an episode titled "Hot Child in the City." She later told television critics that the job "changed my life," in part because her family had to get cable to watch the episode.

In 2011 she was cast opposite Beth Behrs in King's CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, playing a perennially penniless waitress opposite Behrs's newly bankrupted socialite. The Inquirer called the series one of the most promising new fall comedies and said Dennings related to the material because of how she had grown up. The Library of Congress heading and credits treat Kat Dennings as the name used in her professional work.

Name notes for searchers

Kat Dennings is the name used in credits and publicity. A longer form appears in at least one Library of Congress note but is not used in the title because it is not confirmed by the independent newspaper profile cited here. Searchers looking for Kat Dennings from Bryn Mawr or Philadelphia are usually aiming at the same actress. The Inquirer headline also uses the spelling Bryn Mawr.