Rachel was born on May 5. She grew up in Long Island with her mother Sandra , her father Leonard and her two sisters, Jill and Amy . Her father is a doctor and her family is shown to be incredibly wealthy; Rachel states that they owned a boat and that she had her own pony. She and her sisters are portrayed to be vain and spoiled. She is described as being the most popular girl in her high school and was a head cheerleader. Despite her popularity, her best friend was the formerly fat and unpopular Monica Geller . Rachel was close to Monica's family when she was in high school, so she already knew Monica's older brother Ross Geller , who harbors a long unrequited love for her, and Ross's best friend from college Chandler Bing.
Rachel first appears in the Pilot episode when she comes into Central Perk in a rain-soaked wedding dress. Rachel had just run away from her wedding to Barry Farber because she realized that she didn't really love him. Monica, whom she hasn't seen in years, invites her to stay with her at her apartment. It is in this episode that she first meets Phoebe Buffay and Joey Tribbiani

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq...rbpeo1_500.jpg
Rachel's personality evolves during the series. Early on, she is portrayed as a spoiled "daddy's girl" but later, especially after having Emma, becomes less self-absorbed. Image-conscious Rachel had a nose job when she was a teenager, which, she claimed, was due to a deviated septum. Flashback episodes show her with a much larger nose and the insinuation is that the operation was for image, a fact confirmed by a flippant comment from her sister Amy, regarding Emma – "Do you ever worry that Emma's going to get your real nose?". She can be arrogant - her involvement with her neighbor, Danny, shows Rachel with some inability to comprehend that a man may not be interested in her.
After working as a waitress, she was encouraged to use her interest in fashion to get a job in that world. Her focus on this and image come at the expense of domestic skills or common knowledge, of which she was constantly mocked for having little of. In one episode, for example, she accidentally used beef when making a trifle for Thanksgiving dessert after misreading the recipe (the pages were glued together).
She is also seen as a bit promiscuous over the series, and is heavily implied to have lost her virginity before tenth grade in several episodes. In the episode "The One Where They're Going To Party", Rachel implies that she lost her virginity in the back of a van, and even possibly (though unlikely) the van that Monica and Phoebe buy in the episode. It is also revealed in season 7 that Rachel developed very early, with her breasts being developed to the extent of a fifteen-year-old girl by the age of ten..