 After their short @-@ lived television series Family Album was canceled , television writers David Crane and Marta Kauffman pitched Friends to then @-@ NBC president Warren Littlefield as a sitcom about " that special time in your life when your friends are your family , " basing the show on their own experiences as young people living in New York ; the main characters themselves were inspired by their own friends . <unk> as a young woman who is unprepared for adulthood , the character Rachel Green was originally named Rachel <unk> . Although critics and audiences initially perceived Monica as the show 's main character when Friends premiered , the writers had actually given Rachel the pilot 's most prominent storyline . Before deciding that Rachel and Ross would be an item for the entire series , the writers had originally intended for the show 's defining couple to be Joey and Monica . However , after the success of the pilot , in which Rachel and Ross ' developing romance is first hinted at , and witnessing Aniston and co @-@ star David Schwimmer 's on @-@ screen chemistry for the first time , Crane and Kauffman determined that the entire series relied on " finding all the wonderful roadblocks for them to be with each other . " 
