The Name of the Wind characters

First appears in chapter 4

The innkeeper's only student and assistant, a handsome, charming, and mischievous young man devoted to his quiet master. He is soon revealed to be no ordinary person but one of the fair folk of the Fae, keeping human seeming while worrying over the melancholy that grips the man he serves.

Also known as Devan Lochees

First appears in chapter 5

A traveling scribe and collector of stories who has sought out the hidden innkeeper, recognizing in him a legendary figure the world believes dead or vanished. Educated and persistent, he persuades the man to set down the true account of his life.

Also known as Kote, Kvothe the Bloodless

First appears in chapter 7

The red-haired keeper of a rural inn, living in obscurity under the name Kote, who is in truth the famous and half-mythologized Kvothe, a man once renowned as a musician, magician, and hero. Brilliant, proud, and deeply haunted, he agrees to tell the honest story of his life over the course of three days, beginning with his childhood.

Also known as Ben

First appears in chapter 12

A learned arcanist who joins Kvothe's family's traveling troupe of performers, carrying his wagon of chemicals and curiosities. Kind, clever, and quietly powerful, he becomes young Kvothe's first true teacher, introducing him to the disciplined magic called sympathy and glimpsing the boy's extraordinary gifts.

First appears in chapter 17

A group of seven near-mythical figures out of old children's tales and ghost stories, long dismissed as superstition, blamed across the ages for terrible and unexplained calamities. Their coming is marked by eerie signs, such as flames guttering blue, and they descend without warning to slaughter Kvothe's entire troupe, apparently over an old song about them.

First appears in chapter 36

A beautiful, quick-witted, and elusive young woman with no fixed home whom Kvothe first meets while traveling. Independent and guarded, forever slipping away and reappearing under different names and circumstances, she captivates Kvothe even as she keeps the truth of her life carefully hidden.

Also known as Ambrose Jakis

First appears in chapter 42

A wealthy, arrogant, and vindictive senior student at the University, heir to a powerful baron. Accustomed to getting his way through money and rank, he takes an immediate dislike to the poor, sharp-tongued Kvothe, and their mutual loathing grows into a bitter and escalating feud.

Also known as Wil, Sim

First appears in chapter 44

Two fellow students at the University who become Kvothe's closest and most loyal friends. Wilem is a solid, dry-humored young man from a distant land, and Simmon a good-natured, open-hearted one; together they help Kvothe survive the University's rivalries, poverty, and dangers.

Also known as Master Kilvin

First appears in chapter 44

The broad, bearded master who runs the University's workshop, the Fishery, where students craft magical devices through the art of artificing. Gruff but fair and genuinely kind, he prizes careful, safe work and gives the industrious Kvothe a place to earn money and prove himself.

Also known as Master Elodin

First appears in chapter 48

An eccentric, unpredictable master of the University, reputedly a genius and once its youngest teacher, now given to riddles, strange behavior, and cryptic pronouncements. He is a master of the rare and half-legendary art of naming, the deep power of calling things by their true names, though he teaches it in maddeningly indirect ways.

First appears in chapter 58

A small, fragile, and skittish young woman who lives hidden in the tunnels and rooftops beneath and around the University, having apparently fled some earlier trauma. Gentle and childlike, speaking in her own poetic logic, she slowly comes to trust Kvothe, who visits her with small gifts and music.

First appears in chapter 66

A clever, fearless young moneylender who was herself once expelled from the University and now runs a private lending business out of a room above a shop. Charming and dangerous in equal measure, and a skilled arcanist in her own right, she lends Kvothe money on steep and risky terms.