Game of Thrones star Kit Harington didn't find out his real name until he was 11 years old
You know him as Jon Snow - the internet knows him as one of TV's greatest heartthrobs.
But it turns out the name the world knows Kit Harington by isn't actually his name at all, and for the first eleven years of his life, neither did he.
The actor, born Christopher Catesby Harington on December 26, 1986, in Acton, west London, has gone by Kit since day one.
There was only one issue, nobody told him that wasn't his real name. The moment he found out made for one of the more unusual identity crises in celebrity backstory history.
Advert
Speaking to Interview magazine back in 2012, Harington recalled the exact moment the penny dropped.
He was at school sitting a placement test, the kind designed to figure out which set you'd be put in, when he wrote down Kit Harington on the paper.
"They looked at me like I was completely stupid," he said, "and they said, 'No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid.' It was only then I learned my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have."
'I'm not really a Chris'
Despite the revelation, Harington never made the switch. "No one ever calls me Christopher," he said. "I only use it when I'm applying for a new passport or something."
Kit, he concluded, is who he is. "I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a Chris."
It's a fittingly unconventional origin story for an actor whose career has been anything but straightforward.
Harington trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama before making his professional debut in 2009 as Albert Narracott in the West End production of War Horse.
From there, his trajectory changed entirely when he was cast as Jon Snow in HBO's Game of Thrones, a role he would play across eight seasons and that turned him into one of the most recognisable faces on the planet.
In the later seasons of the show, he was reportedly earning up to $1.1 million per episode. A Jon Snow spinoff series was actively developed by HBO in the years that followed, but Harington confirmed in 2024 that the project was "off the table," saying they simply couldn't find the right story, a decision that suggested he'd rather walk away from a guaranteed payday than commit to something creatively hollow.
What is Kit Harington doing now?
Since Thrones ended, Harington has quietly built one of the more interesting post-blockbuster CVs in the business.
He has returned repeatedly to the West End, taking on roles in Doctor Faustus, True West opposite Johnny Flynn, the title role in a 2022 revival of Henry V, and most recently Jeremy O. Harris's provocative Slave Play in 2024. He also appeared in Marvel's Eternals as Dane Whitman, a role that hinted at a bigger MCU future that has yet to fully materialise.
Since 2024, he has starred as Sir Henry Muck in HBO's financial thriller Industry, an aristocrat of great ambition and scant success whose tragicomic hubris has earned him strong reviews and awards attention.
Topics: Game of Thrones, Celebrity, Film and TV
Thomas Bamford