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The characters' full names are: Rachel Karen Green (Jennifer Aniston ), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow ) (in The One Where They All Turn Thirty (2001), she says she never knew her middle name because she had never seen her birth certificate and her twin sister, Ursula, sold it to a Swedish runaway), Joseph Francis Tribbiani, Jr. (Matt LeBlanc ), Chandler Muriel Bing (Matthew Perry ), Ross Eustace Geller (David Schwimmer ) (this was only mentioned in a magazine article by one of the creators back in the 90's), and Monica E. Geller (Courteney Cox) (her middle name is never specified).
Joey was originally written as a jerk. When Matt LeBlanc questioned why the others would be friends with him, the character was changed.
When Matt LeBlanc auditioned for the role of Joey, he had eleven dollars to his name. When the cast got their first paychecks, the first thing that LeBlanc bought was a hot dinner. Courteney Cox bought a car.
When Courteney Cox dressed as fat Monica for the first time, Matthew Perry walked right past her without recognizing her.
Courteney Cox was originally supposed to play Rachel. In Friends: The Reunion (2021), she explained that she asked to play Monica instead, since she related to her more.
Lisa Kudrow and her best friend wrote "Smelly Cat" one night when they were drunk, and it eventually got written into the show.