“We had a rule at “Parks and Rec” that every character had to have a first and last name regardless of whether they had one line or no lines — any casting had to have a complete name. It was such a pain in the ass but it was so fun. We got so invested in crazy names that there were times we couldn’t come up with a normal name. Justin Theroux played a character in season two who was a love interest for Leslie and we just named him Justin. It was like, “What’s his last name?” It took us four hours and what we settled on was Anderson. Then later that year we had Louis C.K. on to also play a love interest for Leslie and we were going to name him Louis. But he had just sold his show and he said, “My show is called ‘Louie,’ it might be weird.” So we said, “Alright, his name is Dave.” But again it took us four hours for his last name, and we settled on Sanderson.”

Mike Schur in Variety