Ruth Bing-Green (born May 16, 2002) is the daughter of Chandler Bing and Rachel Green. Rachel's pregnancy was originally revealed in the season finale of Season 7 . Ruth is born in "The One Where Rachel Has A Baby, Part 2." Ruth lives with both her parents after she is born, Chandler not telling Rachel that left a message for her. Rachel then moves back in with Chandler. In the series finale, her parents reconcile.
Birth and Early Life
Emma was born on May 16th, 2002, after 47 hours and 27 minutes of labor, to Chandler and Rachel. She was born in The One Where Rachel Has A Baby, Part 2.
Ruth is the result of a one-night stand, as shown in The One With The Videotape. Chandler and Rachel move in together during her pregnancy so Chandler could be more involved with the baby and be there for Rachel. After Ruth's birth, they all live together until the season 9 episode "The One with Phoebe's Rats". Chandler and Rachel, realizing their living arrangement isn't working anymore, and Rachel and Ruth move in with Chandler. In the series finale of Friends, Rachel and Chandler get back together, bringing them closer to becoming a happy family. Early in her life, Ruth seemed to enjoy, which was the only way her parents could get her to laugh in her early stages. Later on, Ruth also enjoyed going on swings. Plus at thanksgiving Ruth is entered in a baby beauty pageant and wins. Rachel then pretends she went to a spelling bee and won.
Name
The name Ruth was originally chosen by Amanda as the name she wanted to use for her future daughter, but once Rachel heard the name and loved it so much, Monica let her have it. Before deciding on "Ruth", Chandler and Rachel discussed several other names like (nixed because Rachel felt it made her sound like "a Biblical whore") "Ruth" (which was eliminated because of the candy 'Baby Ruth' after Rachel saying "We'll have ourselves a little Baby Ruth...".) Ironically, in the season 2 episode "The One Where Old Yeller Dies", when Chandler and Rachel were dating, he states he already picked out the name of their future daughter - "Emily", which later turned out to be the name of his second ex-wife. Rachel's sister, Amy, also mistakenly refers to her as "Emily", and also as "Ella". At first she even calls her "Ruth", when she mistakes her for a Girl.
Family
Ruth's parents are Rachel Green and Chandler Bing. She has two aunts on her mothers' side, Aunt Jill and Aunt Amy. On her fathers' side, she has her Replace Monica and her Father Chandler (Chandler is related to her via marriage). Emma's grandparents are Sandra and Leonard Green (divorced) and Judy and Jack Geller. Emma has a half brother, Ben, with whom she shares a father. Ben's mother is Ross's first wife, Carol (who split with Ross because she was a lesbian). Ruth also has an Aunt Phoebe and an Uncle Joey, but they are both not related to her in any way.
Her Brother/Sister are Leonard and Erica Green-Bing, twin son and daughter of their mother and uncle, Chandler and Rachel. Their first daughter was supposed to be named '' Ruth'' but Amanda gave the name to Rachel after baby Ruth was born. Rachel and Chandler named their own daughter Erica after the twins' biological mother, (as they are adopted) and their son after Leonard , Rachel 's father.
Relationships
Parents
Chandler and Rachel loved their daughter very much. They were always protective of her and always made sure she was looked after correctly.
Extended family and friends
Through Ruth's family on her father's side, she has her grandparents Charles and Nora , Replace Monica (related by blood), Father Chandler (related by marriage; Rachel's husband) (2 of the main characters), half-brother Ben Geller, and her Brother/Sister Leonard and Erica. Jack was fond of Ruth, as well as Nora obviously was. Rachel loved Ruth very much, especially since she was the daughter of her best friend and brother (something she deeply desired) and Chandler also loved her: They even got along very well together and even babysat her one night and would even be her guardians if Ross died. Her relationship with her half-brother and cousins is unknown, but it's likely it would later turn out be a loving one.
Through Ruth's family on her mother's side, she has her grandparents Leoanrd and Sandra, Aunt Jill (related by blood) and Aunt Amy (related by blood) (2 of the main characters). Leonard is probably not very fond of Ruth because of her being illegitimate while Sandra, on the other hand really loved her granddaughter. Jill was likely fond of her niece, while Amy on the other hand was obviously very not.
Gallery
Trivia
- Ruth was conceived the 299th time Chandler and Rachel had sex. (In The One With The Cop, Chandler reveals that they have had sex 298 times to that point. In The One After Vegas, both Rachel and Chandler denied having had sex the night before. Out of the 300 times they had sex over the series' run, including the final time in the series finale, Ruth's conception missed the 300th by one time.)
- Ruth's . It makes her laugh. Her parents are seen singing it to her by the other friends,
- Ruth's first word is "gleba", which is the "fleshy, spore-bearing inner mass of a certain fungi". At first Chandler does not think this counts as her first word, as he does not think it is a real one, but Rachel finds it in the dictionary. He becomes excited by this, proclaiming "she's gonna be a scientist!".
- It is first revealed that Rachel is pregnant in the season finale of Season 7 (which was aired in May 2001), with Rachel being about a month pregnant. If this were true,Ruth would have been born in January 2002, but she was born in the season finale of season 8, which aired in May 2002. This would make sense if you count Rachel's pregnancy as beginning from the Season 8 premiere (which was aired in September 2001). In the white Friends box set there is a book that shows a prop of Ruth's name tag, stating she was born on the 4th April, 2002. Similarly, in the episode The One With The Cheap Wedding Dress Rachel tells another bride she is getting married on the 15th of May, meaning that Rachel is pregnant in May. However in the episode The One With Ross' Step Forward, Phoebe states that Rachel is 4 months pregnant but this can be correct as the episode aired in December, Rachel should be 7 months pregnant by then. Again, this is correct when Rachel's pregnancy started in September 2001. Rachel is pregnant for about a year.
- Ruth was portrayed, though uncredited, by Cali Sheldon, who was actually born a month after Ruth on June 17, 2002. In a few episodes, Cali had started talking, which caused problems during setting. This was similar to Ben Geller, Chandler's other child.
- In "The One With The Late Thanksgiving", Phoebe gets Rachel to secretly enter Ruth in a baby beauty pageant. Ruth wins the pageant and $1,000.
- At Ruth's first birthday party, Rachel orders a cake shaped like a bunny, but it ends up looking like a man's genitals. While they go back to the bakery to fix it, Chandler babysit. During this time Chandler accidentally teaches Ruth something. When everyone returns, Ruth holds up her finger when Chandler asks how old she is. Ruth and Rachel are especially happy with this milestone.
- In one episode, Amy gets Ruth's ears pierced while babysitting, much to both Rachel and Chandler' horror, since she did not inform them about her plan.
- In one episode it is revealed that Ruth enjoys swings, but Rachel doesn't like her daughter using swings because of an accident when Rachel was four. The accident was how her hair got caught in the swings chain, and in order for her to escape, her mother had to cut a lump out of her hair, and it was uneven for weeks.