Tower of God (신의 탑) is one of the most-read webtoons in history — over 6 billion chapter views on Naver Webtoon since it launched in 2010. SIU's world is built around a single premise: inside the Tower, anything you want can be found at the top. Names in this universe carry that weight. Who you are in the Tower is partly determined by what you're called — whether you carry a Great Family surname, bear the "Zahard" designation, or entered without being chosen, like the boy born in a room at the bottom of everything, who was simply called "night."
Three Naming Registers, One Tower
Tower of God runs on three distinct naming systems that signal a character's position in the Tower's hierarchy before they've done anything. The Great Family compound names signal lineage and institutional power. Western single names mark climbers without deep Tower roots — including the Irregulars who frighten everyone by arriving uninvited. And the mythological epithet names belong to those who have climbed high enough that their name has accumulated its own gravity.
Family surname first, compound given name — the 10 Great Families run the Tower's power structure
- Khun Aguero Agnes
- Ha Yuri Jahad
- Lo Po Bia Elaine
- Eurasia Blossom
- Khun Edahn
Simple, often western — Irregulars who entered without being chosen, or climbers from unknown origins
- Rachel
- Baam (Twenty-Fifth Baam)
- Hatz
- Evan
- Rak Wraithraiser
Three-part FUG Slayer names and Ranker epithets for those whose reputation has accumulated meaning
- Jyu Viole Grace
- The Pale Star (Ha Yuri)
- Evankhell (Floor Guardian)
- Urek Mazino
- Headon (1st Floor Guardian)
The Great Family Naming System
The 10 Great Families — Khun, Ha, Lo Po Bia, Eurasia, Ari, Tu Perie, Yeon, Noma, Po Bidau, and Wolhaiksong — are the Tower's aristocracy. Each family produces climbers with exceptional Shinsu abilities, and the family surname carries institutional weight that a given name alone never can. Khun Aguero Agnes introduces himself as a Khun before anything else about his given name matters.
The given names within these families are where SIU gets creative. They're often multi-syllable, combining Korean phonetics with occasionally western-sounding elements: Aguero Agnes blends Spanish-sounding components with a cold precision; Marco Asensio follows a similar pattern. The effect is names that feel like they belong to an alternate world — familiar phoneme combinations but assembled in unusual ways.
Khun Aguero Agnes — family first, then the elaborate given name that marks him as someone who was always going somewhere
Twenty-Fifth Baam: The Anti-Name
The main character's full name is a study in deliberate naming inversion. "Twenty-Fifth Baam" — 이십오번째 밤 — translates as "the twenty-fifth night." He was born in a cave at the bottom of the Tower, one of many children with no real identity, and his name is both a birth order number and the Korean word for night. No family name. No chosen-climber status. No history. The name is almost aggressively ordinary — a count and a time of day — which is exactly the point. The boy with no name becomes the boy whose name the entire Tower learns.
Princesses of Zahard
The Zahard naming convention works as both honor and erasure. When a female Regular is chosen as a Princess of Zahard and granted power from the King, she receives the "Zahard" or "Jahad" name appended to her own — Yuri Zahard, Androssi Zahard, Repellista Zahard. The given name remains; the surname from her original family is subsumed by the King's designation. She is now, first and foremost, Zahard's. The naming convention carries this political reality in its structure.
FUG Names: Designed by Committee
FUG — the organization that opposes King Zahard — gives its Slayers three-part names, each component chosen with intention. The pattern creates names that feel simultaneously earned and imposed: a family name granted by FUG (marking membership and ownership), a chosen name that often references something beautiful or delicate, and a final name that suggests something given rather than achieved. Jyu Viole Grace: Jyu (FUG designation), Viole (violet — the flower, the softness), Grace (something bestowed from above). It's a name designed to carry symbolism across three layers, which is very FUG.
- Put the Great Family surname first — Tower of God uses Korean naming order for family-connected characters
- Give Princesses of Zahard a distinctive given name before the "Zahard" title — the given name was theirs first
- Make Irregular names simple and slightly symbolic — they contrast with the compound complexity of Great Family names deliberately
- Add epithets to High Rankers — names like "The Pale Star" or "The Flame Bearer" belong to those whose reputation has weight
- Use unusual phoneme combinations for Great Family given names — they should feel constructed, not pulled from any single language tradition
- Give Irregulars Great Family surnames — they specifically don't have them; that's the point
- Make FUG names random — each of the three parts should have an intended meaning or association
- Use generic fantasy naming for Floor Guardians — they should feel singular and ancient, not like a D&D character
- Confuse Tower of God with Tower of Fantasy — they're completely separate properties with different naming aesthetics
Common Questions
Why does Twenty-Fifth Baam have such an unusual name?
His name is intentionally anti-heroic. "Baam" (밤) means "night" in Korean, and "twenty-fifth" refers to his birth order — he was the twenty-fifth child born in the cave, to a woman who named all her children by number and time of day. He has no family name because he has no family in the Tower's system, no chosen-climber designation because he entered uninvited, and no history that the Tower recognizes. His name is a void where a name should be — which is why the series becomes, in part, about what he fills that void with. When the Tower learns his name by the end, it's one of the most significant moments in the series.
How do the 10 Great Family names work?
Each of the 10 Great Families has a distinctive surname that signals membership: Khun, Ha, Lo Po Bia, Eurasia, Ari, Tu Perie, Yeon, Noma, Po Bidau, and Wolhaiksong (which Urek Mazino effectively founded as an independent organization). Family members use the family surname first followed by a compound given name. The families have distinct personalities and abilities — the Ha family produces warriors, the Khun family produces strategists, the Yeon family uses flame Shinsu. Within a family name, you can expect consistent phonetic patterns in the given names, though SIU deliberately mixes Korean and Western-sounding elements.
What's the difference between an Irregular and a Regular in the Tower?
Regulars are chosen by the Tower's ruler, Zahard, or by Headon (the 1st Floor Guardian) — they receive an invitation to climb. Irregulars are people who enter without being chosen, simply opening a door that was supposedly impossible to open. This makes them anomalies that terrify the Tower's power structure, because the Tower's rules don't entirely apply to them. Naming reflects this: Regulars often carry family surnames and institutional identities; Irregulars like Baam and Rachel arrive with simple, almost placeholder names — names that are theirs but don't connect them to anything the Tower already knows.
How does the Princess of Zahard designation change a character's name?
When a female Regular is selected to become a Princess of Zahard, she receives the Zahard (or Jahad) name as part of her identity — replacing or superseding her family surname. Yuri Zahard was formerly Ha Yuri before the designation; the Ha family name recedes behind the Zahard designation. This is politically significant: she now belongs to Zahard before belonging to her birth family. The naming convention is how SIU embeds this power dynamic directly into the character's identifier. A Princess who reclaims her birth family name is making a statement; the name she uses is itself an act of allegiance or defiance.
