At the beginning of the very first game in the Final Fantasy series, players are faced with a choice common in many RPGs. Sometimes these choices are easy, sometimes they feel almost impossible -- you’re asked to name your characters.

This is common for much of the FF series through the tenth entry, but FF1 is different from most of the series in one key, brutal way: there is no canon protagonist name for the Warriors of Light that make up your playable party. There’s no name like Cloud or Cecil to fall back on - you have to name the characters yourself. This is almost as agonizing as choosing your character classes to make the best team - and certainly harder than finding the best weapons.

From grappling with this question in series like Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, we know that naming characters isn’t easy; a lot of people like the simplicity of a canon name. While FF1 doesn’t have one… we do have some suggestions - and so this page features some FF1 character name ideas that we’ve gathered together...



Unofficial FF1 character names from Official Sources

In 2012, a novelization that retells the events of the first three games in the Final Fantasy series was released in Japan under the title Final Fantasy: Memory of Heroes. The novelization features some named versions of the FF1 Warriors of Light:

• Warrior: Zest / Setro
• Thief: Sauber / Zauver
• Black Mage: Daewoo / Teol
• White Mage: Floe / Flora
• Black Belt: Fritz
• Red Mage: Puffy

In the original NES manual for the first ever western release of FF1, some ‘official’ names were given for the main party members, referencing some Nintendo lore of the time:

• Fighter: Nest
• Black Belt: Howa
• Black Mage: Phil
• White Mage: Tomy

Suggested FF1 Character Names from the FF Series


If the above aren’t right for you and you’re struggling to come up with your own names, the other, quite common option a lot of people choose is to name their FF1 party after similar characters from the rest of the FF series. 

Here’s some character name suggestions from us along those lines:

Warrior/Knight

• Cecil - while FF4’s Cecil is technically a Paladin, that’s very close to the Warrior of Light and its Knight advanced class in FF1, right down to the use of white magic.
• Celes - FF6’s legendary soldier doesn’t quite match the Knight, but is a close enough match.
• Cloud - speaking of SOLDIERs… FF7 doesn’t have classes, but really, Cloud is that game’s Warrior everyman stand-in.
• Squall - and as with Cloud, you can argue Squall is as close to an archetypal Warrior as FF8’s world gets
• Steiner - FF9's Knight, with abilities matching the Warrior & Knight in FF1
• Beatrix - Steiner’s other half in FF9 is, like Cecil, a Paladin - but she’s a bad-ass Knight, too.
• Auron - technically a Samurai, that job doesn’t exist in FF1. But you could equip him with an appropriate weapon and give him this FF10-inspired name.
• Paine - in FF10-2, Paine's default Job is Warrior.
• Ashe - FF12’s Ashe partially resembles a White Mage, and partially a Paladin… but her name would do for FF1’s Warrior.
• Basch - likewise, Basch’s role in FF12 isn’t a perfect fit - but he’s close enough! 
• Lightning - Warrior is of course the default 'protagonist' job, but also in FF13-2's DLC, Lightning has a battle role called Knight, like the FF1 advanced class.

Black Belt / Master

• Yang - FF4's resident Monk.
• Sabin - FF6's train-suplexing Monk.
• Tifa - FF7's combo-stringing martial artist.
• Zell - The resident Monk in FF8.
• Amarant - FF9's assassin features moves that combine those of the Monk and Ninja - two FF1 classes.
• Snow - Often forgotten in the Monk pantheon, Snow fights with his fists, like the Black Belt.
• Eight - FF Type-0's resident Monk class character.

Thief / Ninja

• Edge - A Ninja by trade, FF4's Edge shares some properties with the advanced FF1 class.
• Locke - While he hates being called a Thief, in ability terms FF6's Locke surely qualifies as one.
• Shadow - FF6's Shadow is a Ninja - though some versions of the game refer to it in different ways.
• Yuffie - FF7's Yuffie is probably the FF character who most closely resembles the FF1 progression - in that she's a combination of Ninja and Thief.
• Zidane - FF9 protagonist Zidane is a classif heart-of-gold thief. 
• Amarant - FF9's assassin features moves that combine those of the Monk and Ninja - two FF1 classes.
• Rikku - in FF10-2, Rikku'e default dressphere ability set is that of the Thief. 

Black / White / Red Mages

• Rydia - FF4's green-haired summoner also technically has the Black Mage ability set.
• Palom - one of the two FF4 twins, you might want to pair this with the matching White Mage name...
• Vivi - naturally, FF9's Vivi is the most prominent Black Mage in the FF series.
• Lulu - FF10's resident Black Mage.
• Minwu - there aren't many fully-fledged White Mages in the series that are named, but FF2 is one of them.
• Rosa - in FF4, Rosa fills the typical female lead healer role - and is technically a White Mage.
• Porom - one of the magical FF4 twins - and best paired as a name with Palom.
• Aerith - FF7 doesn't have traditional classes, but Aerith is very much the archetypal White Mage.
• Dagger / Garnet - during the opening of FF9, Garnet actually wears the FF1 Whtie Mage robe! That's as good a reason to choose this name as any.
• Yuna - there aren't any summoners in FF1 - and Yuna is of course the next closest match for a White Mage. 
• Penelo - in FF12's sequel, Penelo's base abilities include a range of traditional White Mage spells.

 

Auto-Generated names from FF Origins

In some later versions of FF1, a script was added to allow indecisive players to automatically generate names for characters. The script featured ten names for each class in the game - each a reference to minor characters from later FF games. The names were as follows:

Warrior/Knight:

• Argus
• Arus
• Baron
• Desh
• Doma
• Giott
• Leo
• Sasuun
• Zeza

Thief/Ninja:

• Baku
• Biggs
• Blank
• Daryl
• Gerad
• Kelga
• Puck
• Sarisa
• Tuss
• Wedge

Monk/Master

• Arvis
• Cinna
• Dorgan
• Duncan
• Gorn
• Maduin
• Marcus
• Owain
• Owzer
• Walz

Black Mage/Wizard

• Delila
• Gilles
• Gungho
• Homac
• Kokkol
• Koko
• Nina
• Stella
• Topapa
• Zok

White Mage/Wizard

• Elia
• Jenica
• Kuku
• Luca
• Mikoto
• Noah
• Ruby
• Sara
• Sarina
• Sherko

Red Mage/Wizard:

• Duane
• Elayne
• Gill
• Kluya
• Kory
• Lalibo
• Lola
• Mid
• Tot
• Yura