Katie Holmes's Real Name: Kate Noelle Holmes

Quick answer: Katie Holmes was born Kate Noelle Holmes on December 18, 1978, in Toledo, Ohio. She became famous as Joey Potter on Dawson's Creek (1998–2003). She later starred in Batman Begins and played Jacqueline Kennedy in two miniseries (Biography.com; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Biography.com lists her full name as "Kate Noelle Holmes" and gives her birth date as December 18, 1978, in Toledo. The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Holmes, Katie, 1978-." One of its citations gives "Katie Noelle Holmes," taken from a book's title page. Another records "b. December 18, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio, USA." Katie is the familiar form of her given name, Kate.

According to Biography.com, she is the youngest of five children of Kathleen Stothers-Holmes, a homemaker and philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes Sr., an attorney. She attended Notre Dame Academy, an all-girls Catholic school in Toledo, where she was a straight-A student. She was accepted at Columbia University but chose to pursue acting. Ohio Magazine, interviewing her as a hometown success story, discussed her return to the role of Jacqueline Kennedy and her Ohio roots.

Career highlights

Holmes began acting professionally in 1997, at 19. Biography.com says Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson originally wanted Selma Blair for Joey Potter, but Holmes's audition tape won him over. The WB drama premiered to 6.8 million viewers and ran six seasons, mostly filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. She even made a cameo as Joey in Muppets From Space (1999).

Her films include Batman Begins (2005), Jack and Jill (2011), and The Giver (2014). On Broadway she appeared in Arthur Miller's All My Sons (2008) and Dead Accounts (2012). She played Jacqueline Kennedy in the miniseries The Kennedys (2011) and again in The Kennedys: After Camelot (2017), opposite Matthew Perry as Ted Kennedy. She was also an executive producer on the sequel and directed an episode. She has since directed features of her own, including Alone Together (2022).

Biography.com says she married Tom Cruise on November 18, 2006, in Bracciano, Italy. Their daughter, Suri, was born in April 2006. Holmes filed for divorce in June 2012.

Name notes for searchers

She has always been credited as Katie Holmes, a familiar form of her birth name, Kate. Noelle is her middle name. Library records include the variant "Katie Noelle Holmes," so searches for Kate Holmes and Katie Holmes lead to the same person. We found no source for "Katherine."