Katherine is from the Greek katharos (pure). A modern American baby name in the broader Greek-English heritage aesthetic. Katherine in Christian tradition — referring to Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 287-305 CE) — one of the iconic foundational early Christian female martyrs and saints; one of the most-celebrated traditional Christian feminine names. Katherine Johnson (1918-2020) — iconic American NASA mathematician; widely considered one of the foundational figures of modern American aerospace + women's STEM history; her foundational calculations of orbital mechanics enabled the iconic NASA missions including Alan Shepard's iconic 1961 first American crewed spaceflight and the iconic John Glenn's 1962 first American orbital flight — Glenn famously requested "get the girl to check the numbers" before launch; foundational calculations for the iconic 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing; Presidential Medal of Freedom (2015) awarded by President Obama — one of the highest American civilian honors; her foundational story was depicted in the iconic **Hidden Figures (2016 film) — played by Taraji P. Henson — Best Picture nominee at the 89th Academy Awards (2017); Hidden Figures book by Margot Lee Shetterly — #1 New York Times bestseller; Congressional Gold Medal (2019); NASA Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility (Hampton, Virginia) named in her honor. Princess Katherine of Cambridge / Kate Middleton (born 1982) — iconic British royal; wife of Prince William, future Queen Consort. Princess Katherine** — Greek-Christian heritage naming.
Featured throughout American history and NASA.
Katherine does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Katherine reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.