Naruto Uzumaki

Naruto Uzumaki (うずまきナルト) is the title character and main protagonist of the series: Naruto. He is a genin from Konohagakure, a member of Team Kakashi, and the third and current jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

Background
Naruto was born as the son of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, and the Nine-Tails' second jinchūriki, Kushina Uzumaki. Naruto's parents named him after the main character of Jiraiya's first book, thus making the Sannin his godfather.

Prior to Naruto's birth, his parents and the Third Hokage knew that the seal that kept the Nine-Tails within Kushina would be in danger of breaking during childbirth. To prevent that threat Kushina was taken a short distance outside of the village to give birth in a secure, secret location with Biwako Sarutobi and Taji as her midwives, a few ANBU as security, and Minato to keep the seal in place. However, immediately after Kushina gave birth, Tobi appeared and took Naruto hostage, demanding that Minato step away from Kushina or he would kill the newborn child. He then used a clever diversion that forced Minato to transport the baby to a safer location, allowing him to escape with Kushina. By the time Minato could intervene, Tobi had already succeeded in releasing the Nine-Tails.

Fortunately, Kushina (who survived the extraction thanks to her strong vitality) was saved by Minato and brought to Naruto, leaving the weakened mother to care for the sleeping Naruto while Minato went to combat Tobi. To save the village, Minato sacrificed his life to seal the Nine-Tails within Naruto, believing that his son would someday have need of the beast's power to defeat Tobi. Suddenly orphaned, Naruto was left to grow up knowing nothing of his parents, receiving only his mother's last name because the Third Hokage thought that it was best that nobody knew that he was related to the Fourth Hokage.

Before Minato died, he asked that the villagers of Konoha view Naruto as a hero who had helped defeat the Nine-Tails. However, only a few of the villagers honoured his request, while most instead resented him for containing the monster that had destroyed their home. In light of this, the Third Hokage decreed that nobody should ever speak of the truth about Naruto, hoping that by doing this, their children would not resent him as they did. The children, however, followed their parents' lead, despite not knowing why. Apart from the Third Hokage, Iruka Umino was the only one who acted as a surrogate family to the young Naruto along with the owner of Ramen Ichiraku: Teuchi and his daughter Ayame to some extent.

When Naruto first met Sasuke Uchiha in the Ninja Academy, they were matched to spar against each other. Naruto was excited at the opportunity to defeat Sasuke and become so popular like him, however he was easily beaten. By looking at Sasuke's eyes, Naruto realised that they were filled with hatred. When Iruka told them to make the reconciliation seal, they both refused. Then, Naruto became determined to beat Sasuke, making him his rival. When Naruto found out that Sasuke was also an orphan, he was secretly happy for not being the only one alone and wanted to talk to him, but couldn't because of his jealousy. Still, Naruto wished that, someday, Sasuke would acknowledge him as an equal.

Personality
Due to the prejudice and loneliness he suffered in his childhood, Naruto developed a craving for acknowledgement. In order to achieve this, Naruto would pull pranks all around the village and even going far as strive for the title of Hokage. Even after graduating from the academy, Naruto was still determined to be recognised, but as he made more and more connections with others, his reasons for wanting to become Hokage underwent a change, having less to do with the desire for recognition, and more to do with wanting the strength to protect his home and the people close to him. As noted by Tobi, Naruto is a fervent believer in the Will of Fire, likening him to Hashirama Senju in this respect. Naruto's unstoppable determination and drive strongly impacts the lives around him, even his enemies had been affected by his empathy. Both Kakashi and Temari had referred to Naruto's amazing charisma as a "unique power" that allows him to change the worldly views of others.

Naruto is most prominently characterised by his hyperactivity, being exuberant, impatient, impulsive, and inattentive. According to Kakashi, Naruto learns through his body. He is relatively naive and simple, being slow to understand a principle or situation, and often requiring an oversimplified analogy in order to grasp what is being explained to him. Overall, Naruto responds best to competition and possesses a great degree of confidence in himself, loudly proclaiming that he will master whatever technique he is learning in a fraction of the usual time, though he will not hesitate to ask for help if he needs it.

Naruto has a number of other distinct traits as well. He inherited his catch-phrase from his mother, Kushina Uzumaki, who would say  when excited or frustrated. He also has a childish quirk of keeping his money in a chubby, green-frog wallet he affectionately calls "Gama-chan". He is also very brash and rarely pays heed to formality or social standings. He almost exclusively eats ramen, and is a frequent customer at the Ramen Ichiraku. He is also something of a pervert, something he tends to be reprimanded for by Sakura as well as Iruka, and has only become more so after meeting Jiraiya. He smiles near-constantly which during his childhood, was to mask the sadness of his lonely life. Those who are closest to him are able to recognise when his smile isn't genuine.

However, when the situation calls for it or when someone dear to him is in trouble, Naruto can be very serious, and will instantly try to come to their aid. This is most commonly seen in the series through his interactions with his team-mates, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. With Sasuke, Naruto views him as a brother, and throughout Part II strives to bring him back to Konoha, despite his willing defection from the village. With Sakura, Naruto has a long-standing crush on her, and Naruto would do all in his power to make her happy, even if it is at the expense of his own happiness. Sai has indicated that this dedication has progressed to the point of love, and though Sakura has been shown to care for Naruto, she doesn't reciprocate these feelings for him. In the anime, Naruto tells Shizuka that though he fell for Sakura, Naruto knows that his affections are one-sided on his part and says that even though she may never reciprocate the affections he held for her, he was happy so long as Sakura was happy. However, despite this claim, Sai notes that the strain of making Sakura happy, and bringing Sasuke home are the source of Naruto's internal pain. Like Guy and Rock Lee, when Naruto makes a promise he assumes the "nice guy pose".

After the loss of his mentor Jiraiya, talking with his own father, and to Jiraiya's killer and former pupil, Nagato, Naruto came to understand the downside of revenge, and desired to save Sasuke from it even more. Naruto also tried to stop the Kumo-nin from exacting their revenge against Sasuke, since this would only create a cycle of hatred. It appeared that Naruto was becoming increasingly desperate in his quest to save Sasuke, as he was willing to take physical abuse from the Kumo-nin over selling Sasuke out as well as getting down on his knees before the Raikage and beg for Sasuke to be forgiven for his crimes. Furthermore, after learning from Madara the reason of Sasuke's hatred, Naruto decided and proclaimed to Sakura, who was trying to get him to leave his quest, that he truly understood Sasuke now. He wanted to save Sasuke, not just because of the promise he made to Sakura, but also for himself. However, after learning from Sai that the rest of his comrades were aiming to kill Sasuke, and that nobody in the village would ever accept him again, Naruto suffered from hyperventilation due to the extreme conflict that he has been presented with.

Upon finally reuniting with Sasuke, Naruto sympathised with the criminal for his actions, and refused to back down or kill him, instead finding a third solution. Naruto came to the conclusion that the two of them were indeed destined to fight, as Tobi predicted, and that when that happens, since both he and Sasuke were top-ranked ninja, they would most likely die. Naruto is fully prepared to shoulder Sasuke's hatred as a friend, and is, in a way, the sole person to not have given up hope on him. However, like the rest of Konoha, Naruto has finally given up in bringing Sasuke back as a citizen of the village, believing that words would no longer have any effect to allowing them to understand each other, and has resigned himself to fighting (and potentially killing) Sasuke to protect Konoha. To prevent himself from dying when he fights Sasuke, Naruto started training to master the Nine-Tails, saying he was through running from being a jinchūriki and prepared to complete "that technique".

Naruto also has shown to deeply love both his parents. When he met his father, and despite being angry at Minato for sealing the Nine-Tails inside of him, Naruto quickly got over his anger and was overjoyed and proud to be the Fourth Hokage's son. He also tearfully embraced his mother Kushina when he met her. After learning how his parents met and what happened during the Nine-Tails' attack on Konoha, Naruto told his mother that he could finally understand how a parent's love felt like and that he didn't blame her or Minato, instead he felt glad to be their son. When the Fourth Raikage criticised on how Minato was supposedly the "Child of the Prophecy" and claiming that he failed when he died against the Nine-Tails, Naruto, remembering what his mother had told him about Minato's love and faith in his son, angrily reproached the Raikage for insulting his father because he didn't know him, and that the Fourth Hokage hadn't failed at all. Naruto also explained to the Fourth Raikage that despite his parents dying shortly after he was born, they both made him strong.

Since the start of the Fourth Shinobi World War, and by extension, the invasion of Pain, Naruto had frequently thought that it was his 'duty' and 'burden' to stop the pain and hatred, and that he must shoulder it alone. However, Itachi pointed out to Naruto that this line of thought, coupled with his increasing power, would only make him arrogant. He even went as far as to suggest that Naruto could one day become like Madara should he forget about his friends.