Why Do Fake Phone Numbers Start With 555?

At this point in your life, you've probably caught onto Hollywood's fake telephone number hack. It looks something like this: some character in a movie or TV show asks for somebody's phone number and then another character responds to them by writing down or saying, "555-XXXX." It probably only took you a few times of seeing this on the big screen to start seeing this mysterious pattern. All major movies and TV shows seem to start off their phone numbers with 555...but why? Did you ever think about the reasoning behind it? Did you ever wonder what's so special about 555? Well, we've got the details for you right here, and it's actually a little more interesting than you might think; so keep reading below to find the answer to one of North America's most pressing questions: Why is 555 a fake number??

1973- The year of the fake phone number

So it wasn't actually until the year 1973 (although some people say it was earlier) that movies began using 555 numbers. This is because this was around the time that it became popular for businesses to incorporate their name into their telephone number, or at least the first three digits. For instance, if you were a telephone sales business, you might want the first three digits of your phone number to be 835, (as in the letters T E L for "telephone"), and then take whatever remaining four digits you could get for the rest of your phone number. That's because customers are more likely to remember a number like TEL-4876 rather than 835-4876, for example.

It was because of this popular method of selling and selecting telephone numbers that telephone companies quickly became aware that 555 would not be and was not a requested number. With the possibilities of 555 being some combination of J, K, or L, phone companies understood that most likely business' wouldn't request JKL or KLJ or JLK (especially since the number 5 doesn't represent any vowels). But at the same time, they also knew that 555 was an easy combination to remember. The result was that 555-1212 became designated for directory assistance, meaning anyone from any area code in North America could call it to receive help, and the the rest of the 555 numbers were up for grabs. And from there, the rest is basically history. Telephone companies let Hollywood know that all numbers outside of 555-1212 were free for creative use and some film and TV producers took note of this, while others did not, to their later regret (more on that later).

1994- The attempt to sell 555

With 555-1212, or directory assistance, being a unique number in that it would always ring to the same place no matter what area code you called from, telephone companies hatched another plan in 1994: why not sell 555 numbers to any company that desires one number to be valid across all of North America, no area code needed. From a business' perspectives, as you might imagine, this was a very appealing idea. Instead of a 10 digit number that had an additional, unique area code tacked on, why not always be known as the same 7 digit number no matter where their customers were in the continent!

However, Like many ideas in history, this one ended up being good in theory but bad in practice. While national telephone companies began accepting applications for various 555 numbers, local phone companies and personnel were not too keen on taking on this project and therefore the whole idea was shut down. But of course, this didn't mean 555 was out of the pictures for movies and TV; in fact during this whole '94 fiasco and until this very day, any phone number between 555-0100 and 555-0199 are set aside for entertainment purposes.

555 Today- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In case you were wondering, today if you were to dial 555-1212 while in North America, no matter what your area code, you would still reach directory assistance. Additionally, 555-4334 has also been assigned national use...but again all of this is only true in North America, so don't quote us on this while you travel.

In more recent pop culture history, however, there have been many extremely popular uses of 555 numbers, some of the most popular being: 555-2368 to reach The Ghostbusters, 555-MMMM to purchase Screech's spaghetti sauce from Saved by the Bell, and 555-FILK for Kramer's fake movie line in Seinfeld.

Perhaps you recognize some of those examples, or perhaps not...but maybe what you're really wondering is, "are fake phone numbers really necessary? Would someone actually try to call a non-555 phone number that appeared in a TV show, movie, or song?" And, believe it or not, the answer is 100% yes. Don't believe us? See if you can stream the theatrical release of Bruce Almighty. In this 2003 Jim Carrey hit, God's phone number was originally shown as 776-2323 when the movie played in theaters (and yes, the film's creative team chose this even though the fictional 555 phone number system was very much in place). While the choice to do this may have been an innocent one, it resulted in MANY calls to this number, regardless of what area code people were in. Therefore, people all across North America who had the ending 7 digits of 776-2323 (but different area codes) were all plagued with the same problem of prank and curious callers. In fact, the issue was such a nuisance that for the film's future DVD and TV reproductions, the number was changed to 555-0123. And so, if you weren't convinced now, perhaps now you are: the fake 555 phone number system exists for good reason (just ask anyone who owns the number 867-5309 how many times they get asked if they're Jenny a la Tommy Tutone).

As soon as an actor in a movie or TV show starts rattling off a phone number, every viewer knows what the first three digits will be: 5-5-5. How did "555" become the convention for fake phone numbers, and are there any real 555 numbers? Let's dial up some answers. Why do TV and movies need the fake 555 numbers? Just ask anyone who had the misfortune of having the number 867-5309 how their life changed after Tommy Tutone's 15 minutes of fame. Apparently some tiny fraction of the population (we're guessing a fraction that largely consists of adolescent boys) thinks it's hilarious to call any number they see on the screen. To curb these nuisance calls, movies and shows have been using the fake 555 numbers since as far back as the 1950s. (In keeping with the old exchange-naming convention, back then it was "KLondike 5" or "KLamath 5.")

It's hard to pin down exactly how 555 became the go-to fake prefix for phone numbers. In the book Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day, author Jamie Buchan speculates that the repeated digit may have made the combination memorable, which helped it gain traction. Buchan adds that since no major place names in the United States began with a combination of the letters J, K, and L (the letters assigned to the 5 key on a phone), the KLondike/KLamath prefix wasn't exactly a coveted commodity. Since the early 1970s there's been at least one 555 number callers can dial and get an answer: 555-1212 is a standard number that rings directory assistance. The rest of the 555 numbers have largely gained fame as fake numbers in movies and on TV. (The number 555-2368 has risen to particularly rarefied air, possibly because of the "2368" combo's use in old phone ads. Dialing 555-2368 will get you the Ghostbusters, the hotel room from Memento, Jim Rockford of The Rockford Files, and Jaime Sommers from The Bionic Woman, among others.)

What you may not know, though, is that there are many more "real" 555 phone numbers. Since 1994, 555 numbers have actually been available for personal or business use. That's when the North American Numbering Plan Administration started taking applications from people and businesses who wanted their own 555 numbers. Theoretically, these numbers would have worked from anywhere in the continent; dialers would be able to dial 555-XXXX and always end up with the same number regardless of area code. The hope was that if you needed, say, a taxi anywhere in the country, you could just remember one number that would always work.

Things didn't work out quite so smoothly. People and businesses snapped up the 555 numbers (except for 555-0100 through 555-0199, which were held back for fictional use) but they soon learned that owning a phone number isn't all that useful if you don't also own a phone company that can connect the number. Phone companies protested that setting up these services would be wildly expensive; in 2003 Verizon told The New York Times that adding the nationwide 555 service to its systems would cost the company $108 million. (Verizon did offer to hook up the 555 numbers for owners, but the same Times story noted that the service usually required a $2,500 set-up fee per area code.) Skeptics claimed that the phone companies were just dragging their feet so the 555 numbers didn't sap cash away from 800 numbers. There may be some truth to that theory, but the 555 system still isn't up and running in any meaningful way. The list of people and entities that own the numbers is a pretty amusing read, though. It's mostly newspapers, hospitals, random people, and the state of Nevada.

And so, there you have it! We hope you enjoyed reading about the history behind 555 numbers and the reason it's still embraced by North American creatives today. And who knows, maybe this knowledge will come in handy the next time you're looking for a quick fun fact or are watching Jeopardy with your friends!