For "Sex and the City" fans, Carrie Bradshaw has always been, well, "Carrie": The smoking, shoe-loving fashionista who falls for Mr. Big, eventually marries him and (spoiler alert) is widowed on the limited series sequel, "And Just Like That..."
Well, as if Big's death wasn't big enough of a revelation, the newest episode of "That" has dropped another bomb on us: Carrie's full name is actually ... Caroline!
So is that "Caroline" reveal sweet, or sour? Would Neil Diamond approve?
It all happens pretty fast in the "Some of My Best Friends" episode, when Carrie walks into a bodega she's clearly frequented in the past. The owner immediately greets her as "Caroline," and that's more or less it.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
Related
Well, we just weren't prepared! "Carrie" is just "Carrie" to us. But this isn't entirely a new revelation: Fans who've visited Wikipedia have been able to see her name listed as "Caroline Marie 'Carrie' Bradshaw" for years.
But it hasn't necessarily been canon until now; HBO's own official website still lists her as Carrie only. But "Carrie" is a typical enough nickname for "Caroline"'; it's not as if her name is "Thomasina" or something more unusual.
And both shows (and the movies spun off from them) have long been cagey about some of their characters' backstories and names. We didn't learn that Mr. Big's first name was "John" until the end of "SATC's" sixth season, and only then on Carrie's caller ID.
"If I wanted to give him a name, I wanted to give him the most generic, American, most generic, almost pilgrim name," showrunner Michael Patrick King told Entertainment Weekly in 2017. "There’s no spin, it’s just John."
And then we discovered that he was "John Preston" in the trailer for 2008's "Sex and the City: The Movie," a full decade after he first appeared on screen. (The character has since died in the show, and portrayer Chris Noth is currently the subject of sexual assault allegations.)
So really, not calling "Carrie" by her full first name for all this time is completely, totally on point.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
