Kaif's early life 

Katrina Kaif was born in Hong Kong with her mother's surname Turquotte (also spelt Turcotte), on 16 July 1983.According to the actress, her father (Mohammed Kaif) is a British businessman of Kashmiri descent and her mother (Suzanne, also spelt Susanna) is an English lawyer and charity worker.She has seven siblings: three older sisters (Stephanie, Christine and Natasha), three younger sisters (Melissa, Sonia, Isabel) and an older brother, Michael. Isabel Kaif is also a model and actress. Kaif's parents divorced when she was a child, and her father moved to the United States. She said her father had no influence on Kaif or her siblings while they were growing up, and they were raised by their mother. On her father's absence in her life, Kaif stated: "When I see friends who have wonderful fathers who are like pillars of support for their families, I say, if only I had that. But instead of complaining, I should be grateful for all the other things I have". In a 2009 interview with The Indian Express, she said she was not in touch with her father.

Kaif says that her mother decided to "dedicate her life to social causes", which led to the family's relocation to a number of countries for varying lengths of time: Our transitions in growing up were—from Hong Kong where I was born, to China, then to Japan, and from Japan by boat to France ... After France, Switzerland—and I'm cutting out many East European countries where we were for only a few months each—then Poland in Kraków ... After that we went to Belgium, then to Hawaii, which was a short time, and then came to London.

Due to their frequent relocation, Kaif and her siblings were home-schooled by a series of tutors. Although she is thought to have grown up in London, she lived there for only three years before moving to India. According to Kaif, she then changed her surname to her father's because she thought it would be easier to pronounce.

Kaif's paternal parentage has been questioned by some members of the film industry. In a 2011 interview with Mumbai Mirror, Boom producer Ayesha Shroff accused Kaif of fabricating her history: "We created an identity for her. She was this pretty young English girl, and we gave her the Kashmiri father and thought of calling her Katrina Kazi. We thought we'd give her some kind of Indian ancestry, to connect with the audience ... But then we thought that Kazi sounded too ... religious? ... Mohammad Kaif was at the top, and so we said, Katrina Kaif sounds really great".Kaif called Shroff's comments "hurtful".