Kate Hudson's Real Name: Kate Garry Hudson

Quick answer: Kate Hudson's full name is Kate Garry Hudson. She was born on April 19, 1979, in Los Angeles, California, and works under Kate Hudson—the civil form of her birth name.

Real name and early life

Library of Congress name authority and Biography.com identify Kate Garry Hudson (LOC; Biography.com). Hudson is the family surname; Garry is the middle name. She is the daughter of actress Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson; she was raised primarily by Hawn and actor Kurt Russell. Growing up around film sets with Hawn and Russell, she pursued acting as a teen and young adult in Hollywood rather than adopting a different professional surname.

Career highlights

BBC and U.S. press after Almost Famous framed her as more than a famous daughter, citing the Golden Globe win alongside the Oscar nomination.

Her breakthrough was Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000), earning an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for best supporting actress (Biography.com). She followed with romantic comedies and dramas including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Raising Helen, You, Me and Dupree, Fool’s Gold, and later roles spanning music biopics and ensemble films. She has also built a lifestyle brand (Fabletics) alongside acting. Later credits continued to mix romantic comedy with dramatic turns while her fitness lifestyle brand expanded. Across awards-season prestige and studio comedy, billing stayed Kate Hudson; the documented full name is Kate Garry Hudson.

Almost Famous remains the credit most tied to her name searches; subsequent studio rom-coms cemented mainstream fame while she periodically returned to music-adjacent roles and ensemble projects through the 2010s and 2020s.

Name notes for searchers

She is not billed under Hawn despite the famous maternal surname; Hudson is her birth surname. Prefer LOC and Biography.com over gossip columns. Wikipedia is useful only as a pointer after primary citations.