What was J.K. Rowling’s middle initial chosen to honor?

J.K. Rowling’s middle initial K honors her paternal grandmother, Kathleen.

Rowling was born Joanne Rowling and did not originally have a middle name. When Bloomsbury prepared to publish Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the publisher believed that a gender-neutral author name might appeal to a broad audience. Rowling therefore used her first initial and the initial of a chosen middle name: J.K. Rowling.

The K came from Kathleen, the name of her paternal grandmother. It was not Rowling’s birth middle name, and the “K” does not stand for a secret magical term or a character from the books.

The author is commonly known as J.K. Rowling, although she has also published crime fiction under the name Robert Galbraith. In personal and biographical contexts, her birth name is Joanne Rowling. The initials became one of the most recognizable author brands in modern publishing.