21 things you may not know about Kate Middleton

• In honor of Kate Middleton's 37th birthday on January 9, INSIDER rounded up a few things you may not know about the royal.
• The Duchess of Cambridge is a patron of numerous charities and a mental health advocate.
• Kate is passionate about sports and the outdoors, having grown up sailing and playing hockey and tennis.
• She once trained for two months to race across the English Channel with an all-female dragon-boat crew.
• Before she met Prince William in college, the duchess worked as an accessories buyer for a British clothing retailer.

On January 9, Kate Middleton celebrates her 37th birthday.

In the nearly eight years since she married Prince William in 2011, the Duchess of Cambridge has become a patron of numerous charities, launched a mental health campaign, showed off her photography skills, and much more.

While Kate has been a household name for quite some time now, the royal was once a normal student who grew up playing hockey and tennis and modeled for her parents' company's catalogs.

Below, find out 21 things you may not know about the duchess's life, both before and after she met Will.

Kate Middleton has a younger brother named James.

Kate's younger sister Pippa has been in the public eye for quite some time, but the youngest Middleton sibling, James, has stayed mostly out of the spotlight.

James is perhaps best known for launching a company called Boomf, a service that lets customers print graphics and personal photos on marshmallows.

Currently, the entrepreneur works as a tour guide at Pippa's father-in-law's hotel in Scotland.

 

 

The Duchess of Cambridge and the queen share a name.

Kate's full name is Catherine Elizabeth Middleton. Her middle name, Elizabeth, is the same as the queen's first name.

Kate is both a duchess and a princess.

When Kate married Prince William in 2011, the queen conferred her with the official title Her Royal Highness (HRH) the Duchess of Cambridge.

HRH is an official style used to address princes (His Royal Highness) and princesses (Her Royal Highness) in the royal family.

But in the UK, only women who were born as princesses — like the queen's daughter, Princess Anne — can be styled by their own name, as royal historian and academic librarian Marlene Koenig previously told INSIDER.

Women who obtain princely status through marriage take on the stylized titles of their husbands, explained Koenig, who runs the blog Royal Musings.

See the rest of the story at INSIDER