Persona 5 Royal Protagonist Name: Joker's Canon Name revealed

by Alex Donaldson on 04 April, 2017

You'll be asked to choose a Protagonist Name at the onset of Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, as in other entries in the series. This is a Persona tradition, and the idea is for you to make up a name of your own. However, there is actually an official canon protagonist name for the hero known as Joker, if you want to play it by the book.

Naming characters is of course an RPG staple, but it's arguably even more difficult and challenging in a game set in Japan, like Persona. Coming up with a fitting name that sounds right in the setting can be a challenge, if you don't know your way around the language or Japanese naming conventions.

That's where searching for the canon name of the player character comes in. The Persona has a bit of a strange history with protagonist names - so much so that we have a page dedicated to Canon names across the whole Persona series. On this page, however, we're all about the canon name of the Persona 5 Protagonist, Joker:

The Persona 5 Protagonist's Canon Name, Revealed

At the start of Persona 5 Royal, you'll have to sign your name. This is the protagonist's name for the rest of the game.

While the protagonist of Persona 5 Royal goes by 'Joker' when he's on his adventures as a Phantom Thief, half of any Persona adventure is getting to know friends - here known as confidants - and working your way through a challenging year as a student complete with school questions and exams. For all those things, he goes by whatever name you input at the start.

Like we said earlier, you're meant to choose your own name, but if you're stumped, there is a canon Joker name, if you want it. In fact, he sort of has two...

The official canon name of the protagonist is Ren Amamiya (Given name Ren, Family name Amamiya). The Ren Amamiya name is used in the Persona 5 Anime and Persona 5 Dancing Star Night, so it is the current canon name. This very roughly translates to "Rain Palace", making it a name that in terms of meaning slots in quite well with the overall tone of Persona 5 Royal.

Before we got the Ren name, however, the bespectacled hero of Persona 5 was given a name in the official manga: Akira Kurusu. (Given name Akira, Family name Kurusu). The translation of this game feels much less specific to P5's story, so it feels natural that it was eventually replaced.

Whatever name you write, it won't really matter in voice-over and the like - all the voice acting will still refer to him as "this guy" or "Joker". But the name will pop up from time-to-time in unvoiced dialogue.

This gives you two choices of relatively canon names for your protagonist, at any rate - so choose whichever sounds better to you. Alternatively, you can pick something else, of course.

If you want a bit of a relevant, classic name you could go for Jirokichi Nakamura, an infamous Japanese thief, or Ishikawa Goemon, who is sort of like the Japanese Robin Hood, a gentleman thief.

Whatever you call your main character, Persona 5 is amazing. We awarded it a 10/10 in our review, Persona 5 Royal did just as well - and the new PC, Xbox, and Switch ports are also great. Good news all around! If you're just getting started on the game, you should check out our varied Persona 5 Royal guides, which will help you through the game.