No, Penny from “The Big Bang Theory” does not have a Penn & Teller pun for a last name. The popular CBS sitcom ended five years ago, but some fans of the series are apparently still trying to figure out Kaley Cuoco’s character’s maiden name. In 2022, a fan theory went viral claiming that Penny’s last name was Teller, based (per TVLine) on a season 2 episode in which a prop delivery box included that last name in super-small, meant-to-be-unreadable font. Unfortunately, the show’s former executive producer and prop master were quick to put the kibosh on that notion, with several people involved in the series admitting that Penny doesn’t have a last name by design.
“Her last name being Teller is absolutely not canon,” series EP Steve Molaro told TVLine at the time, explaining that the name was only used for prop reasons and that the writers’ room and producers for the show “didn’t sanction it, we didn’t write it, and we didn’t intentionally put it there.”
Scott London, who handled props for the show, says that series co-creator Bill Prady gave him the name, but it wasn’t meant to be canonical or even seen on camera. “I had assurances it wasn’t going to be seen, that Scott just needed it for the visual shape of the block of type,” Prady told the outlet. “But, emphatically, Penny’s last name is not Teller. I don’t know how that image of the shipping label exists and fans were able to see it and make it out.”
Penny has never had a canonical last name, period
Eagle-eyed fans spotted the label in the season 2 episode “The Work Song Nanocluster,” when Penny starts making flower barrettes under the small business name Penny Blossoms. The box contains some of her crafting materials, but it was the shipping label, not the contents, that got fans riled up. For London’s part, he says he had to add a last name to the label. “I mean, you can’t just tell me to ship to Penny with no last name!” As the show continued, though, it was clear that the girl next door’s lack of last name was a running bit, and by the time she married Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) many seasons later, it was obviously missing from the ceremony.
“The canon is that she does not have a last name that we ever assigned to her … and we’re never going to make one,” Molaro told TVLine. “Even when she and Leonard got married, we made sure to edit around even hearing what her [last] name would be.”
Of course, the idea of a female character who isn’t given a complete name until she marries a man has rubbed some people the wrong way, especially given the show’s questionable track record with women. “Your name is part of who you are and to rob someone of that feels unfair, especially since Penny has taken the brunt of many sexist jokes and tropes throughout the years,” Kelly Schremph wrote in a piece for Bustle in 2019.
If you think that’s sexist, wait until you hear about the rest of the show
“The Big Bang Theory” initially conceptualized Penny as a girl robot rather than a human woman, and its early seasons frequently made use of the objectifying, misogynistic tropes of ’80s movies about nerds and hot girls. The show also utilized the insufferable character type that Pop Culture Detective dubbed the “Adorkable Misogynist.” As that site puts it, “Adorkable Misogynists are male characters whose geeky version of masculinity is framed as comically pathetic yet still endearing. Their status as nerdy ‘nice guys’ then lets them off the hook for a wide range of creepy, entitled, and sexist behaviors.”
For her part, Cuoco has mostly been positive about the show’s decision not to give Penny a last name.”It’s kind of a personal thing,” she told CBS News in 2017. “It feels like a jinx. We haven’t said it for so long. I feel like if we said it, the world will explode.” She said something similar at the show’s 2019 wrap party, telling TVLine, “I kind of love it. So many things are revealed in the last few episodes; you get a lot of satisfying moments. But I kind of love that [we’ll never know her last name].” In a different interview a year earlier, Cuoco told The Talk (via E! News) she did want to know Penny’s name, but she appeared to be joking.
Molaro has also implied that the show’s team saw Penny’s last name as a sort of a jinx, with The Hollywood Reporter quoting him as saying, “[Eventually] we got nervous and superstitious about giving her one … it will always be Hofstadter” at a WonderCon panel five years ago. Much has been made of Penny’s lack of last name, but if the decision to leave her without one — at least, until she takes her husband’s — gives us the ick, it’s probably because it’s emblematic of larger issues with the show’s depictions of women that aren’t quite as easy to grapple with. Throughout its run, the show also glosses over or casually normalizes real issues women face, like sexist stereotyping, objectification, consent problems, stalking, unplanned pregnancy, gendered domestic roles, and lots and lots of sexual harassment. Love the show’s writing decision or hate it, but when it comes to questions we still have for “The Big Bang Theory” writers, Penny’s last name is not at the top of the list.
