Out of all the main characters, Phoebe was presented as the most offbeat member of the core group. Despite being the oddball, Monica, Rachel, Ross, Chandler, and Joey accepted Phoebe for who she was. She didn't have the best upbringing and spent much of her early life raising herself on the streets of New York. Over time, Phoebe developed a wild imagination. A lot of her creativity was put into her side gig as a musician, but it also spilled into her sense of humor.
Throughout Friends, Phoebe had a habit of using alter egos when she wanted to pretend to be another person in the eyes of strangers. Over the course of the decade-long series, Phoebe took on a number of aliases. In season 10, she even legally changed her name after her marriage to Mike Hannigan. Upon learning that she could change her name to anything, Phoebe briefly became "Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock." She also contemplated having her friends calling her "Valerie," but had a change of heart after Mike's dismay. When he threatened to legally change his name to "Crap Bag," she decided to go by Phoebe Buffay-Hannigan. Other than "Ikea," when she pretended to be Swedish, and "PeHee," the name on her birthday cake, Phoebe's most significant alias was "Regina Phalange."
How Regina Phalange Became A Long-Running Gag
Regina Phalange was the most frequently used alter ego by Phoebe, becoming one of the show's most amusing jokes. She took on the alias any time she wanted to pretend to be a different person which occurred many times in the series. Phoebe first came up with the alter ego in Friends season 5 after Ross mixed up Emily's name by instead calling her Rachel. To explain the mishap, Phoebe claimed to be Dr. Regina Phalange, Ross' brain doctor, who tried to justify her friend's mix-up. She used the alter ego on a few other memorable occasions, including in Vegas and when she helped Joey avoid humiliation with a casting director. In that instance, though, she adapted the typical alias into a French version called "Régine Philange."
Phoebe's invention of Regina Phalange paid off one final time in the Friends series finale. When Ross was trying to catch Rachel before she left for Paris, he needed Phoebe's help in stopping the plane from taking off. Phoebe then called Rachel and told her that something was wrong with the plane's "left phalange." After repeating the claim to a fellow enger, Rachel accidentally caused a panic that led to the plane being evacuated, and Ross was able to reunite with her. If it wasn't for Phoebe's phalange idea, Rachel would have been on her way to another continent. Her favorite alias turned out to be more significant than she ever imagined.