Here’s a bit of trivia to file away for a Jeopardy game: Barbie and boyfriend Ken are two years and two days apart in age. Mattel considers the day each doll debuted as their birthday, so Barbie’s bday is March 9, 1959 and Ken’s is March 11, 1961. Double Pisces! With Ken approaching 65 in six weeks, Mattel is drumming up a little publicity (which also coincides with a new sponsorship deal, more on that later) by revealing that he’s actually not Just Ken, but has a full name just like his girlfriend Barbara Millicent Roberts. After a 65-year-wait, the truth is out! Presenting Kenneth Sean Carson.

It turns out, he’s more than just Ken.

After all, as Barbie prepares to celebrate her boyfriend’s 65th birthday March 11—which is also the anniversary of his debut—fans are getting a closer look at these lesser-known secrets about the perfectly coiffed doll. Including the inside scoop on his full name: Kenneth Sean Carson.

Like Barbie—whose name Barbara Millicent Roberts was a nod to Mattel founders Ruth Handler and Eliot Handler’s daughter Barbara Handler—the boy next door’s moniker was inspired by their son Kenneth Handler.

Although the doll’s name was a nod to Kenneth, that was as far as the similarities went.

“Ken doll is Malibu,” the screenwriter, who died in 1994, told The Los Angeles Times in a 1989 interview. “He goes to the beach and surfs. He is all these perfect American things.”

“I was a nerd—a real nerd. All the girls thought I was a jerk,” he admitted. Instead of being the dreamy cool guy, Kenneth said that he “played the piano and went to movies with subtitles.”

Ken the doll, however, had a high school experience that could rival a John Hughes movie. Indeed, exactly two years and two days younger than his girlfriend, Ken would eventually meet Barbie at a dance.

“Barbie, the famous teenage fashion model doll by Mattel, felt that this was to be a special night,” the 1961 commercial introducing Ken explained. “And then, it happened. She met Ken and somehow, she knew that she and Ken would be going together.”

“Now, Ken and Barbie meet for lunch at school, go to fraternity parties and just relax together. Think of the fun you’ll have taking Barbie and Ken on dates, dressing each one just right,” the commercial’s narrator continued. “Get both Barbie and Ken and see where the romance will lead.”

Ken and Barbie may be the most picturesque couple, but that doesn’t mean the whole relationship was perfect. In fact, Mattel revealed in 2004 that after four decades, the couple had broken up and needed “to spend some quality time—apart.”

But there is no Ken without Barbie, and in 2011, Mattel had billboards of Ken proclaiming his love for Barbie ahead of Valentine’s Day.

“As the ultimate boyfriend for every occasion, Ken knew just what to do to win Barbie back,” Mattel’s senior vice president of global marketing for girls brands Stephanie Cota shared in a press release at the time. “The iconic couple is truly made for each other and this is just the beginning of their next chapter together.”

As for how Ken plans to celebrate his 65th birthday in his next chapter? He’s bringing the Kenergy to Expedia as the travel company’s newest brand ambassador for 65 adventures around the world.

[From E! News]

Whoah whoah whoah, wait a second. I understand a parent giving their child’s name a cameo in their work. I myself routinely featured as an attorney in my law professor father’s exams for his students. But you’re telling me Ruth & Eliot Handler named the Barbie and Ken dolls after their daughter and son, and then made them girlfriend and boyfriend?! Where’s the Freud doll?? How did the Handler siblings feel about that when they were kids, hmm? And while we’re interrogating Mattel canon, was Ken’s Valentine’s Day billboard gesture actually romantic? Or was it more stalker-ish and disrespectful of boundaries established following a break-up that was decades in the making. Barbie is an astronaut, a doctor, president — she’s everything! Meanwhile, post-split Ken is shilling for an online travel booking company. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still Just Ken(neth)!

Photos credit: Look/Look Press/Avalon, Phil Lewis/Wenn/Avalon