Grand Theft Auto (series)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Protagonists

Claude (Grand Theft Auto III)

Our "hero" in the series's first 3D title - a very competent street thug betrayed by his girlfriend Catalina during a bank heist. Escaping police custody, he goes on an epic quest in Liberty City to make as much money as possible, destroy things, kill people, and take revenge at some point.


Tommy Vercetti (Vice City)

Tommy was a member of the Forelli crime family in Liberty City before being sent to whack a rival gang member in Harwood. However, he was ambushed but took down his would-be assassins, racking up a body count of 11. This incident lead to him gaining not only infamy as "The Harwood Butcher", but also 15 years behind bars. Upon his release, Sonny Forelli knows that Tommy is too hot for Liberty and sends him "down south" to Vice City to expand the empire, starting with a cocaine deal with the Vance Family. Unfortunately, this results in yet another ambush that leaves Vic Vance dead and Tommy without the coke or Sonny's money. With nothing but the clothes on his back, a hotel room and a relationship with neurotic lawyer and lead Ken Rosenberg, Tommy then sets out to find out who set him up, get Sonny's cash back, and perhaps get a slice of the action for himself. Voiced by Ray Liotta.


Carl "C.J." Johnson (San Andreas)

The playable protagonist of San Andreas. After his brother is killed, C.J. moves away to the East Coast (Liberty City to be specific) to try and escape his gangbanger roots and move beyond them. Five years later, his mother Beverly is murdered in a drive-by shooting, prompting him to return to Los Santos for the funeral. Unfortunately, he's picked up by C.R.A.S.H. almost immediately after arriving, framed for a cop killing (that C.R.A.S.H. themselves are responsible for), and dumped in enemy territory. And so begins San Andreas... Voiced by rapper Young Maylay.

  • Affably Evil: He is a Nice Guy, despite committing rather horrendous acts during the course of the game.
  • Anti-Hero (Type IV or V)
  • Anti-Villain: Type I
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience - While not necessary, wearing anything green will boost C.J.'s respect amongst the other Grove Street members a bit.
    • In general, most street gangs in San Andreas fly their own distinctive colors. When you first run up against the Ballas, the game even says "Those guys in purple are the Ballas. They are your sworn enemy."
  • Drives Like Crazy: Supporting characters will often comment on his reckless driving habits during cut-scenes or missions.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas
  • Even Evil Has Standards: The OGs may be crooks, but they look out for their neighborhood. The Ballas flood their own territories with drugs.
  • Gangsta Style - For any one-handed weapon, combined with...
  • Guns Akimbo - If he is skilled enough that is.
  • The Lancer - starts out as one to Sweet.
  • Trash Talker - Cranked up to 11 from Tommy in the previous game.
  • Universal Driver's License - CJ may have to take a Forced Tutorial before he can enter airports and jack planes (unless he elaborately hops the fence), but he still manages to figure out the jetpack pretty quickly. On the other hand, the player has to grind skill with most forms of transportation before they can use them with anything resembling competence.

Mike (Advance)

Toni Cipriani (Liberty City Stories)

First appeared in GTAIII as a Capo for Liberty City's dominant Leone Mafia family. Later used as the protagonist of the prequel title Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories, where he has returned from a long absence to help organize said family's success. Has an unsupportive, domineering mother who embarrasses him at every turn.

Victor Vance (Vice City Stories)


Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV)

Johnny Klebitz (GTAIV: The Lost and The Damned)

  • Badass Biker
  • Deadpan Snarker: Not quite as adept at it as Niko or Luis, though.
  • Dumb Muscle: Johnny can competently run his biker gang, but noticeably lacks the instinct or foresight of other GTA protagonists. He'd be up the creek without his brothers in the Lost, and he knows it.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Because of the slightly mocking and teasing tune his fellow club members puts on every time they say "Jonathan", it can be assumed to be one.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: He is a much more qualified leader of the Lost than club president Billy Grey ever was...
  • Too Dumb to Live: ...but still tries to pull an incredibly transparent double-cross on one of the biggest mob bosses in town. It's implied by that point that Johnny no longer cares whether he lives or dies.

Luis Fernando Lopez (GTAIV: The Ballad of Gay Tony)

  • Badass Spaniard
  • Berserk Button: Threatening or insulting his mom.
  • Casanova
  • Deadpan Snarker: Even more than Niko.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Technically hyper-competent business partner, but Gay Tony would've gotten himself shot, blown up, lit on fire, and dumped in the ocean ages ago without Luis to handle things.
  • Knight Templar Big Brother: He served a sentence in juvenile hall after shooting a teacher who felt up his sister.
  • Really Gets Around
  • The Stoic
  • The Sociopath: He has no qualms about violence, and is implied to enjoy it. He also mentions that he does not feel much.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: At least compared to that other GTAIV protagonists. Luis genuinely believes it's possible to clean up and better yourself, which gets him treated like a chump by most of Liberty City's criminal population.

Huang Lee (Chinatown Wars)

The main character of Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars and one of the more intelligent GTA protagonists. He starts out relatively naive and expects to be treated well, but instead ends up working for his uncle for awhile, and it all goes uphill from there.

The Antagonists

Catalina (Grand Theft Auto III)

Claude's ex-girlfriend; she shoots him in the bank heist getaway and leaves him for dead. Catalina appears at various points throughout the game in league with anyone Claude's working against, although she's primarily associated with the local Colombian Cartel, and in the end she kidnaps Claude's (presumed) latest love interest to force a final showdown. She also makes an appearance as a supporting character in San Andreas; when C.J. is forced out of Los Santos, her cousin (and C.J.'s sister's boyfriend) Cesar Vialpando sets the two up for a crime spree throughout the countryside. A violent one sided (with Catalina as the active party) love affair begins to take form until she finds Claude, and the two leave the state to harass C.J. with obscene phone calls for the rest of the game.

  • Ax Crazy - In GTAIII, she already shoots two of her apparent love interests, but it goes even further in San Andreas: she has graves dug by her house, she sexually abuses C.J. (and still thinks she loves him), she threatens to kill/castrate C.J., and she takes glee in killing any cops or civilians who get in her way.
  • Big Bad: Of Grand Theft Auto III.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder - To be perfectly fair it's served her pretty well until the end of GTAIII.
  • For the Evulz- While other antagonist have reasons for their actions against the heroes, she is just a Complete Monster who enjoys robbing and killing.
  • Freudian Excuse - This dialogue from San Andreas, made at the conclusion of her robbery missions.

Catalina: Carl, you have to be fast and totally ruthless! No fucking about like in the betting shop!
CJ: What?! If you hadn't started bustin' things would've been sweet!
Catalina: They had to die because you were slow and stupid! Like a big fat brat who eats chocolates while his father gives nothing to his stepdaughter but stale bread!

CJ: What? Where did that come from?

Catalina: Enough! I'm not speaking to you anymore!

  • Noodle Implements: Carl's unpleasant exeperience with Cat's "rack."
  • Spicy Latina
  • Yandere: For all her personality issues, she can also go from almost sweet and caring towards Carl and absolutely batshit about killing him on a whim.

Sonny Forelli (Vice City)

The Don of the Forelli family, Sonny is calm and gentle at first but really likes being rich.

Ricardo Diaz (Vice City)

A self-centered, self-serving, Holywood Homely fat guy whose only reasons to live are in and around his mansion. He is helped by Victor Vance in his rise to power, only to be taken down a few years later by Tommy Vercetti, who takes his mansion, cars, and helicopter.

Frank Tenpenny (San Andreas)

The main antagonist of San Andreas, Tenpenny is a officer from Los Santos Police Department's Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums unit. He is bent on destroying all of the gangs in the state by playing them out against each other. He approaches his job with a willingness to commit murder, blackmail people both inside and outside the law and turn the blind eye on certain crimes if it results in a good looking crime percentage rating afterwards. Voiced by Samuel L. Jackson.

Big Smoke (San Andreas)

A member of the Grove City Families, who turns out to be working alongside C.R.A.S.H. and is involved in the drug trade.

Eddie Pulaski (San Andreas)

Pulaski is Tenpenny's right hand and takes care of the more physical parts of C.R.A.S.H.'s dirty business. He is possibly even more corrupt and definitely a bigger jerk than his boss. He does however have a problem with seeing the bigger picture in Tenpenny's plan, and does not realize that he is about as dispensable as everyone else involved in it. Voiced by Chris Penn.

Ryder (San Andreas)

Lance "Ryder" Wilson is a senior Grove Street OG and has been a criminal since his childhood. Almost always under the influence of some kind of drug, Ryder is a loudmouth and the troublemaker of the group. His "Grove Street 4 Life" attitude is dropped when Big Smoke convinces him to turn on the Families in a private conversation. Voiced by rapper MC Eiht of Compton's Most Wanted.

Jerry Martinez (Vice City Stories)

The Mendez Brothers (Vice City Stories)

Auntie Poulet (Grand Theft Auto Vice City Vice City)

A matriarch of the Haitian gang that is fighting the Cubans, and probably the strangest character in Vice City. After getting Tommy to come to her shack, she gives him a strange brew that screws with his mind.



Dimitri Rascalov (Grand Theft Auto IV)

A Russian criminal Niko meets in Grand Theft Auto IV. He starts out as Mikhail Faustin's right hand man. Due to Mikhail's increasingly irrational behavior getting them in trouble with Kenny Petrovic, Dimitri orders Niko to assassinate Faustin. However once the deed is done Niko goes to collect the money to discover that Dimitri has sold Niko out to Ray Bulgarin.

Ray Bulgarin (GTAIV: The Ballad of Gay Tony)

Billy Grey (GTAIV: The Lost And Damned)

Minor Characters (III Continuity)

8-Ball

A demolitions expert in Liberty City (even though car bombs shops everywhere in the III continuity use his name.) Connected to the Leone family, and a buddy to Claude and (to a greater degree) Mike.

Phil Cassidy

Phil appears in every single game from the GTA III continuity (with the only exceptions being San Andreas and Advance). He is a weapon-dealer who specializes in big guns...really big guns. His first appearance is in GTA III, where he only appears in one mission, wherein Claude helps him defend his weapon supply from the Colombian Cartel. At this point he wears military clothing and is nicked-named "The One Armed Bandit" because of his left arm he claims to have lost doing a battle in Nicaragua. In Vice City, were his screen time is vastly expanded, it is revealed that never was in the army, but was repeatedly turn down because of bad temper and heavy drinking, and that he, in fact, lost his arm do to an accident with some home distilled alcohol and a homemade bomb. Apparently he would later make his friends keep up the lie. In what is presumably a Continuity Nod, Phil only appears in a short cameo in Liberty City Stories, while Vice City Stories once again features him a bit more prominently.

  • While being very drunk* "The thing is Vicky boy, my daddy was an angry man. He never, ever told me I was special. In fact - he used to beat me. Especially when he caught me staring at my cousin or my sister. You know what he said to me? He said I'd be better off dead..."

Maria Latore

Salvatore Leone


Donald Love

Liberty City's resident media mogul; first introduced in Grand Theft Auto III seeking Claude's services for McGuffin escort. After having a cameo in Vice City he comes back as a supporting character - and more neurotic than ever - in Liberty City Stories as the Leone family's preferred candidate for mayor.

Kent Paul

Ken Rosenburg

A neurotic mob lawyer with connections to various big figures in Vice City.

Lance Vance

Louise Cassidy-Willams

Ned Burner

A news reporter willing to do anything for good stories to cover... including posing as a priest and having Toni Cipriani commit all sorts of atrocities.

Minor Characters (Vice City Stories Continuity)

Phil Collins

Minor Characters (IV Continuity)

Yusuf Amir

Roman Bellic

Brucie Kibbutz

Eddie Low

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