Rory Williams

Rory Williams was a "sort of" boyfriend and eventually fiancé of Amy Pond who became a brief companion of the Eleventh Doctor.

Early Life
Rory was a childhood friend of Amelia Pond. He was privy to her tales of the "raggedy Doctor", and an unwilling participant in the dress-up games she based around her stories.

Meeting the Doctor
Later in life, Rory became a nurse at Royal Leadworth Hospital, and entered into a romantic relationship with Amelia (now calling herself "Amy"). In his position as a nurse, Rory encountered strange goings-on at the Hospital's coma ward, hearing the patients chanting "Doctor", and witnessing what looked like some of them walking out in town. Rory later encountered the Doctor himself, and was quite surprised to find out he was real, and not a figment of Amy's imagination. Rory witnessed the Doctor defeat Prisoner Zero and warn the Atraxi away from Earth. (DW: The Eleventh Hour) He later got engaged to Amy. (DW: Flesh and Stone)

Joining the Doctor
After having his stag party crashed by the Doctor, Rory and Amy were taken on a "romantic break" to Venice. While on their break they encountered the Saturnynian's, a race of alien fish who had taken human form in order to repopulate their species after having escaped through the Time Field to escape the 'silence'. While at first he was hesitant and outright scornful of how the Doctor lived, he soon came to change his views, something remarked upon irritatedly by the Doctor at first. While they were in Venice, Rory agreed to continue travelling with the Doctor after Amy asked him to do so (DW: Vampires of Venice). The Doctor whole heartedly agreed and the three entered the TARDIS.

Personality
Rory appears somewhat timid in his first encounter with the Doctor. He is easily intimidated by Dr Ramsden and is unsettled by the ensuing events caused by the Doctor and Prisoner Zero. Despite this, he does have the presence of mind to record evidence in order to prove that his patients are appearing outside the hospital. He also assists Amy in attempting to clear the hospital of patients before Prisoner Zero can exploit them. During the events in Venice, Rory was unnerved that the Doctor actually wanted to get back into the "vampire's" stronghold. However, he was capable of bravery, as shown when he challenged Francesco in order to protect Amy.

Nametag Controversy
The question of Rory's "home" time period is one that baffled fans in the aftermath of the broadcast of The Eleventh Hour. This was largely fueled by an image of Rory's Royal Leadworth Hospital identification badge, that was given an extreme closeup in the episode. This closeup plainly shows the badge to have been issued on 30th November 1990, which would seem implausible given the presence of various bits of technology in the episode, such as laptop computers and the named 2008 Blackberry phone. The existence of Facebook, Bebo, and Twitter were also mentioned, the phone had Facebook. So perplexing was this badge ID that Steven Moffat was specifically asked about it in New York by an American fan on 13th April 2010. His response was recorded and released in the podcast, Meet the Filmmaker: "I have never actually looked at Rory's name tag to be completely honest with you . . . it's not a signficant plot thing."

- Steven Moffat at the SoHo Apple Store

Though it seemed a genuine, spontaneous answer, Moffat had earlier enthusiastically extolled the virtues of lying to the public and press about the content of Doctor Who, in a question-and-answer session following the New York theatrical screening of The Eleventh Hour. In any event, judging by the technology in existence at the time of the Atraxi incident, it seems unlikely that the 1990 date on the name tag could be genuine. But adding fuel to the fire, 1990s cars were seen, but so were cars said to be of a 2005+ period. Flesh and Stone later had the Doctor remark that 2010 was "Amy's time", meaning that the 1990 date was an error.