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One mostly sees Kate as a nick for Katharine; Kit for Christopher and therefore a masculine nick. However, it's a small and playful step from Kate to Kit(ty).

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There's a lovely children's book by Geoffrey Trease, called Cue for Treason, in which Shakespeare is one of the characters! Another is a girl who for excellent reasons runs away from home disguised as a boy and becomes an actor specialising in female roles ... she is a Katharine who calls herself Kit while on the run. But how authentic that is, I can't say.

The only obvious use of "Kit" as a nickname in Elizabethan times was for "Christopher", most notably Christopher Marlowe (who may or may not have written some portion of Shakespeare's works, but in any case was a much more interesting character). Kit continued as a male nickname up into the 19th century (Christopher "Kit" Carson - explorer, Indian fighter, and native of our little hometown - being the primary example).

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- da.

I believe so. I've seen it in history books, and novels, and I believe they were about Elizabethan times.
meghan