Mr. Big’s Real Name on ‘Sex and the City’ Was Revealed in the Strangest Way

TV names matter! Are you a Carrie or Samantha? A Rachel or Monica? A Buffy or Willow? A Betty or Veronica? A Blair or Serena? A Pam or Karen? OK, You get the idea. But Sex and the City creators kept us on tender hooks throughout the near-entirety of the series, keeping Mr. Big's real name firmly under wraps.

Of course, the big reveal (sorry), was given to us in the last episode, when Carrie was seen on her pink, bedazzled Motorola Razor phone with a John. But the HBO show's producers have said they came up with the idea at the eleventh hour.

"In the last episode, in the last moment, I realized [I had] to say Mr. Big's name and I just [mimed typing on a keyboard] 'John,'" executive producer Michael Patrick King told Entertainment Weekly. "And then I told all the writers and they were like, 'What the hell?' And I was like, 'We have to say his name because now he's real!'"

So why the name John? "If I wanted to give him a name, I wanted to give him the most generic, American, most generic, almost pilgrim name," King added. "There's no spin, it's just John."

His "generic" real name stands in stark contrast to his nickname then. SATC author Candace Bushnell told New York Magazine in 2004: "I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus," she says. "He was one of those New York guys with a big personality — you just notice him as soon as he walks in the room."

This story originally appeared on Grazia.

In honor of the 20-year anniversary, check out the gallery below to see how the Sex and the City cast has changed since the first episode aired!