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Main Characters
Mrs. Garrett
Edna Ann Garrett-Gaines
Played By: Charlotte Rae
The housemother and dietitian at Eastland School.
- Breakout Character: She was originally a supporting character from Diff'rent Strokes, but got her own Spin-Off. She stayed as a main character in this show for seven seasons.
- Fiery Redhead: Has red hair and has no problem getting angry at the girls when they go too far.
- Nice Girl: She is always willing to lend a helping hand and always listens to the girls' problems.
- Out of Focus: Her role is reduced in season 6 and 7, due to her actress being busy with other projects.
- The Paragon: Was this to the girls, they all looked to her for advice and help in any major situation. Slowly faded out of this role as they grew up and became more independent.
- Put on a Bus: She leaves in season 8, after asking her sister Beverly Ann Stickle to replace her.
- Team Mom: A mentor and maternal figure to the girls.
Blair Warner
Blair Warner
Played By: Lisa Whelchel
A vain and spoiled but ultimately good-natured rich girl.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted in Season 9, when she gets into a bad car accident, leaving her with a nasty cut on her forehead. This breaks her spirit completely. But thankfully, she recovers.
- Catchphrase: "I just had another one of my brilliant ideas!" and "Turn Blue!"
- Fatal Attractor: Not all the time, as most of her boyfriends were decent, although she did attract a: controlling Jerkass, and a Functional Addict who chose to wait all night for his supplier than go on a date with her.
- Go-Getter Girl: An over-achiever who ends up becoming a lawyer.
- Hero with an F in Good: Blair could come off as so condescending, it often hurt when she was trying to be genuinely nice.
- Hollywood Atheist: Blair is an atheist for most, if not all, of the series because she prayed for God to not have her parents divorced and didn't get it. Arguably ends when her sister is born.
- KidAnova: She is boy crazy yet chaste into her twenties. Partially Enforced Trope due to Lisa Whelchel's Religious beliefs.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Her snotty behavior tends to cover up her deep-seated parental abandonment issues. She has few real friends outside of the main cast.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: A vain and shallow rich girl, yet sympathetic and a good friend.
- Named After Somebody Famous: In-Universe example. The Season 3 episode "Legacy" reveals Blair was named after her grandfather, who happened to be a prominent judge. Naturally, Blair is proud of that fact until she learns he was secretly a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
- Non-Idle Rich: Blair likes to flaunt her privilege and her looks, often times bragging about how kept she is. She's actually a Go-Getter Girl who ends up becoming a lawyer.
- Proud Beauty: She brags about her beauty and her "naturally blonde hair."
- Rich Bitch: Rich, snobby, and stuck-up, although she's the rare Hidden Heart of Gold subtype.
- Small Name, Big Ego: She believes to be absolutely perfect, but her "brilliant ideas" are rarely brilliant.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: As a spoiled rich girl, she's the girly girl to Jo's rebellious Troubled, but Cute tomboy.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Jo. They spend most of their time sniping at each other, but they are actually best friends and will jump to the other's defense in a heartbeat.
Tootie Ramsey
Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey
Played By: Kim Fields
The youngest of the group and Token Minority.
- The Baby of the Bunch: The youngest and most naive of the main characters.
- Big Brother Worship: She adores her older brother, Marshall, even trying to cover for him and excuse his actions when she learns he has a drinking problem.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Played with. She was the youngest and the most sheltered of the girls, and combined with her naiveté, plenty of times she comes off this way. This eventually tapers off in the later seasons.
- Catchphrase: "Oooh, they're in troou-ble!"
- Children Are Innocent: Being the youngest, she was the most innocent of the group. It actually put her in danger quite a few times in season 3, most especially when she recklessly runs off to New York City by herself. She was easily deceived and nearly recruited into a life of prostitution. She does wisen up in later seasons.
- Girlish Pigtails: In earlier seasons, she often wears pigtails, to evidence her short and young appearance.
- Gossipy Hens: Her gossipy nature is one of her defining traits.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Natalie. The two girls were joined at the hip.
- Nice Girl: Despite her initial brattiness, she ultimately shows herself to be a very sweet person.
- Pubescent Braces: Her braces are another thing that evidence her young age (she's only 11 at the beginning), compared to the others.
- She Is All Grown Up: By series end, she's become a beautiful young lady.
- Token Minority: An African-American girl and is involved in some race issues storylines.
Natalie Green
Natasha Letisha Sage "Natalie" Green
Played By: Mindy Cohn
The quirky yet impressionable Big Fun of the group.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Natalie could get gleefully vengeful or just plain mean if she felt betrayed. Even Blair, who is afraid of very little, is afraid of her.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Overweight, but has no problem with her appearance, and attracts many boys.
- Daddy's Girl: To her doctor father, Dr. Sy Green. Needless to say, she takes both his affair in season three and his sudden death in season five quite hard.
- Dude Magnet: Natalie tends to have a lot of boyfriends during the show's run and was the first girl to lose her virginity.
- Happily Adopted: She finds her birth mother in one of the earlier seasons, but still happily considers her adopted family her 'real' family.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Tootie to the point of their families considering each girl to be sisters.
- Informed Judaism: She is Jewish, but it only comes up once or twice.
- Intrepid Reporter: One of her main loves, having written for the paper of both Eastland and Langley.
- Progressively Prettier: Later seasons viewed her as sporting make-up, cutting her hair a more flattering length and wearing clothing to suit her more shapely figure.
- Smitten Teenage Girl: "Natalie, have you been writing to prisoners again?"
- What the Hell, Hero?: To her father after discovering his affair, even telling him point blank that he was her hero. It's implied that she never gets over this, as seasons later she acts somewhat hostile to Mrs. Garrett when a friend accused her of having an affair with her husband.
Jo Polniacezk
Joanna Marie "Jo" Polniaczek
Played By: Nancy McKeon
Introduced in season 2, Jo is a tomboy from a poor family and Blair's Foil.
- And Starring: From season 4 onwards, she is "and Nancy McKeon as Jo" in the opening.
- Brainy Brunette: Brown hair and graduated from Eastland as valedictorian.
- Foil: Blair's main foil and rival, in their Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic. Blair is a spoiled and rich girly girl, Jo is a tomboy from the Bronx, and yet they are similar in other ways: both are intelligent students and both are different versions of Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Iconic Sequel Character: Doesn't appear until season 2.
- The Lad-ette: A tough tomboy who arrives at the Eastland Academy on her motorcycle, right down to the Samus Is a Girl moment when she pulls off her helmet to reveal that she is, in fact, a girl.
- Perpetual Poverty: Much is made of Jo's poverty for most of the show.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: When she wears dresses and make up, she's very pretty. By season 9, she's more feminine and is quite a knockout.
- This Means War!: Has this mentality, as demonstrated in season 3, where gets revenge on a teacher who treated her poorly by writing an article in the school paper about him being arrested at a drug party. Too bad the guy hadn't really taken drugs, meaning she destroyed a man for nothing.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: A rebellious Troubled, but Cute tomboy, in contrast to Blair's spoiled and rich girly girl.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Usually wears a ponytail in early seasons.
- Troubled, but Cute: An unruly and rebellious tomboy who comes from a poor background, but still pretty and a sympathetic character.
- Tsundere: Jo reacts with hostility every time she is accused of having a "sensitive side." This dies down in the last seasons.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Blair. They spend most of their time sniping at each other, but they are actually best friends and will jump to the other's defense in a heartbeat.
- Wrench Wench: She knows mechanics and at one point, she gets a job at a local garage.
