What Wilmer Valderrama Revealed About Fez's Real Name In That '70s Show

If you grew up in the '90s, you probably watched at least some of That '70s Show. It was a very popular Fox sitcom, running for eight seasons from 1998 until 2006. The series followed the lives of a group of teenagers, led by Topher Grace's Eric Forman, as they grew up in Point Place, Wisconsin, in the 1970s. Each episode of the comedy, which managed to make the last four years of the '70s last eight years in real-time, followed Eric and his friends — Donna (Laura Prepon), Kelso (Ashton Kutcher), Hyde (Danny Masterson), Fez (Wilmer Valderrama), and Jackie (Mila Kunis) — while they hung out, often in the Forman family's basement.

There were a number of running gags throughout the show, but one of the most popular was the series' frequent teasing of information about Fez, a foreign exchange student, and then never revealing it to the audience. For instance, the country he was from was never identified except via vague descriptions, such as that it was an island and that his best friend back home spoke with a British accent because he was from the other side of the island. Fez would often begin to explain where he was from and something would happen that would interrupt him. This is similar to how the show treated the character's real name as well.

Most fans know that Fez was a nickname given to the character by his friends after he told them his real name, which was quite long, and they said they would never remember it. After that they started calling him Fez, which was formed from the words "Foreign Exchange Student." Much like how the show never revealed where the character was from, Fez's real name was also never revealed to the audience. It was teased multiple times throughout the show, but something always happened to keep viewers from hearing it. In one instance, a school bell rang while he said it. The most we learned during the show's run was that "the first five Ks are silent" in his last name.

However, the character does have a real name. In an interview with ABC celebrating the 10th anniversary of the comedy's series finale in 2016, Valderrama revealed that he had decided on Fez's real name himself, and that it was made up of the first name of each of the other characters on the show. "I said that is what Fez's real name is, because that is what he is," he said. "He is a little bit of all the characters on That '70s Show."