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Don QuixotePrincipal Characters
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Principal Characters

The people are described as they are when they first appear. In parentheses are other names by which they are called.

In the village of La Mancha

  • Don Quixote (Don Quixote of La Mancha, the Knight of the Sorry Figure, the Knight of the Lions, Alonso Quixano the Good) · a hidalgo of nearly fifty who reads so many books of chivalry that he loses his wits, makes himself a knight-errant, and rides out to right the wrongs of the world. His surname is also given as Quixada, Quesada, or Quexana.
  • Sancho Panza · a farmer from the same village. He cannot read, but he talks fast and pours out proverbs without end. He becomes Don Quixote’s squire on the promise of an isle to govern.
  • Rocinante · Don Quixote’s bony nag; and Sancho’s donkey, the gray.
  • Dulcinea del Toboso · the woman Don Quixote makes the lady of his thoughts. She is in fact Aldonza Lorenzo, a farm girl from the neighboring village of El Toboso, who has never set eyes on him.
  • Teresa Panza (Juana Gutiérrez, Mari Gutiérrez, Teresa Cascajo) · Sancho’s wife, who waits with their daughter Sanchica (Mari Sancha) for her husband’s earldom.
  • The priest, Pero Pérez · the village priest and a licentiate, Don Quixote’s friend, who searches his library, burns his books of chivalry, and plots to bring him home.
  • Master Nicolás, the barber · the village barber, the priest’s partner in bringing Don Quixote back.
  • The housekeeper and the niece, Antonia Quixana · Don Quixote’s household: a housekeeper past forty and a niece not yet twenty.
  • Sansón Carrasco · a bachelor just back from Salamanca, who brings the news that Part One is in print, and who rides out disguised as the Knight of the Mirrors and the Knight of the White Moon to keep Don Quixote at home.

People met on the road in Part One

  • The innkeeper and Maritornes · the keeper of the inn that Don Quixote takes for a castle, and the Asturian servant girl.
  • Andrés and Juan Haldudo · a boy being flogged by his master, and the farmer flogging him.
  • Ginés de Pasamonte (Ginesillo de Parapilla; in Part Two, Master Pedro) · a galley slave Don Quixote sets free, who comes back in Part Two with an ape and a puppet show.
  • Cardenio and Luscinda · a young man gone mad in the Sierra Morena, and the woman he loved.
  • Dorotea (Princess Micomicona) · a farmer’s daughter abandoned by Don Fernando, who plays Princess Micomicona to lure Don Quixote home.
  • Don Fernando · a duke’s younger son, who takes Luscinda from Cardenio and abandons Dorotea.
  • Anselmo, Lotario, and Camila · the three people of The Novel of the Ill-Advised Curiosity, which the priest reads aloud at the inn.
  • The captive, Ruy Pérez de Viedma, and Zoraida · a captain held prisoner in Algiers, who escapes with the Moorish girl Zoraida.
  • The canon · a churchman of Toledo who argues about books of chivalry and the theater while Don Quixote is carried home in a cage.

People met in Part Two

  • Don Diego de Miranda (the Knight of the Green Coat) · a prudent country gentleman who watches Don Quixote face the lions. His son, Don Lorenzo, is a poet.
  • Camacho, Quiteria, and Basilio · Camacho the Rich, Quiteria the Fair, whom he means to marry, and Basilio the Poor, who wins her by a trick on the wedding day.
  • The duke and the duchess · an Aragonese couple who have read Part One. They take Don Quixote and Sancho into their castle and play jest after jest on them, helped by the damsel Altisidora, the duenna Doña Rodríguez, and their steward.
  • The Countess Trifaldi (the Sorrowing Duenna) · a figure in one of the duke’s jests, which ends with the wooden horse Clavileño.
  • Ricote · Sancho’s old neighbor, a Morisco who has come back in secret after the expulsion. His daughter, Ana Félix, appears off Barcelona, trying to rescue Don Gregorio, the young man she left behind in Algiers.
  • Roque Guinart · the chief of a band of Catalan outlaws.
  • Don Antonio Moreno · a rich gentleman of Barcelona who takes Don Quixote into his house.
  • Don Álvaro Tarfe · a character from the spurious Second Part, whom Don Quixote meets at a tavern on his way home.

Outside the story

  • Cide Hamete Benengeli · the Arab historian said to have written this history first.