Courteney Cox's Real Name: Courteney Bass Cox

Quick answer: Courteney Cox's full name is Courteney Bass Cox, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. She was named after her mother and was born in 1964 in the Birmingham, Alabama, area. During her marriage to David Arquette she was credited as Courteney Cox Arquette, a form the Library of Congress also records. She is best known as Monica Geller on Friends and Gale Weathers in the Scream films (Encyclopedia of Alabama; LOC).

Real name and early life

The Encyclopedia of Alabama says Courteney Bass Cox was born in the Mountain Brook suburb of Birmingham. Her father, Richard Lewis Cox, was a businessman, and she shares her first name with her mother, Courteney. She was the youngest of four children. Her parents divorced in 1974, and her mother later married Hunter Copeland. Cox graduated from Mountain Brook High School, then spent a year studying architecture in Washington, D.C., before leaving to pursue modeling and acting.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama gives her birth date as June 15, 1964. An LOC citation gives June 14, 1964, and also records her birthplace as Birmingham and her 1999 marriage to Arquette.

Career highlights

Cox signed with the Ford modeling agency and appeared in teen magazines and commercials. In 1984 Bruce Springsteen pulled her onstage to dance in his "Dancing in the Dark" video. She went on to Misfits of Science (1985) and a recurring role on Family Ties (1987–89) as Alex P. Keaton's girlfriend, Lauren. She also appeared in the films Masters of the Universe (1987), Mr. Destiny (1990), and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994).

In 1994 she was cast as Monica Geller on Friends, which ran for ten seasons. Her castmates included Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer. The Encyclopedia of Alabama says Cox, Aniston, and Kudrow each earned $1 million an episode in the final two seasons. In 1996 she first played reporter Gale Weathers in Scream and has returned to the franchise many times, including the 2022 reboot and Scream VI (2023).

She met David Arquette on the first Scream. They married in 1999, had a daughter, Coco, in 2004, and divorced in 2012. Together they ran Coquette Productions, which produced Dirt (2007–08), in which she played a tabloid editor. She starred in Cougar Town (2009–15), produced Celebrity Name Game, and led the horror comedy Shining Vale (2022–23). In 2021 she reunited with the cast for Friends: The Reunion.

Name notes for searchers

Courteney is her first name, taken from her mother, and Bass is her middle name. "Courteney Cox Arquette" was a married professional credit, not a birth name; her current credits read Courteney Cox. Her first name is often misspelled "Courtney."