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I prefer Katherine by far to Catherine. But why? I think it's because Katherine looks younger and more vibrant to me than Catherine. Katherine is a young beautiful woman and Catherine is dowdy and matronly and middle-aged. I think it's because one of my favorite books is a biographical novel about a young and beautiful Katherine and her name is spelled Katherine and not Catherine and I read that book for the first time when I was very young and it's colored my perception ever since.

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Another thing that causes this perception is Catherine of Aragon, whose name is sometimes spelled with a K but usually with a C, and whenever she's written about it's emphasized that at the time that Henry VIII decided he wanted to annul their marriage she had grown middle-aged, stout, and dowdy, and she compared very unfavorably to the younger and sexually magnetic Anne Boleyn.

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Maybe this is silly but I think that's it.