Five Nights at Freddy's starts with a simple job: sit in a security office at a family pizza restaurant, watch the cameras, and survive until 6 AM. The restaurant's singing animatronic band wanders at night, and if one reaches your door while the power is out, the game ends with a jumpscare. That's the whole premise of the 2014 original, and Scott Cawthon built an entire franchise on top of it.
What kept people playing was the story hidden underneath. The animatronics are haunted by children murdered at a Freddy Fazbear's location, and the killer is still out there. Each new game added a piece of the puzzle through minigames, phone calls and hidden screens. A decade later the series spans more than a dozen games, a long run of novels and two films. This page is the hub for its characters: the famous animatronics, the humans and the Afton family. For every single machine, game by game, see our companion FNAF animatronics list.
- Creator
- Scott Cawthon
- First game
- August 2014 (PC)
- Genre
- Survival horror, point-and-click
- Later studios
- Steel Wool Studios, Mega Cat Studios and others
- Films
- Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025)
The main animatronics
These are the characters most people mean when they say "FNAF characters": the original band, the replacements and redesigns that followed, and the few animatronics that matter most to the story. Each entry focuses on who they are and why they matter. For their in-game behaviour and every variant, jump to the complete animatronics roster.
Freddy Fazbear
Mascot · Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
Freddy is the brown bear in the top hat and bow tie, the band's lead singer and the face of the company. In the first game he's the patient one: he rarely moves while you still have power, then plays a music-box tune in the dark once it runs out. Almost every game since has its own Freddy, from the plastic Toy Freddy to the friendly Glamrock Freddy, which makes him the franchise's constant. The child thought to be inside him is usually identified as the first of the missing children.
Bonnie
Guitarist · Original band
Bonnie is the purple-blue bunny who plays guitar. In FNAF 1 he always approaches from the left side of the office and is usually the first to move, which makes him the most aggressive of the four. His withered form in FNAF 2, with his face torn away to show the endoskeleton, is one of the most recognisable images in the series.
Chica
Singer · Original band
Chica is the yellow chicken with a bib reading "Let's Eat!!!" and a pink cupcake companion with eyes, often called Mr. Cupcake. She comes from the right side in FNAF 1 and can be heard clattering pots in the kitchen camera, which the game never shows. Her versions grow stranger with every game, but the cupcake always comes along.
Foxy
Pirate fox · Pirate Cove
Foxy is a worn-out pirate fox kept behind a curtain marked "Sorry! Out of Order". Unlike the others he doesn't creep around; if you ignore his camera he sprints straight down the west hall. His tattered design and unique attack made him a fan favourite, and his pirate-ship stage has been rebuilt in several later games.
Golden Freddy
Secret fifth animatronic
Golden Freddy is a slumped yellow bear who appears in the office only through a rare event, and staring at him too long crashes the game. He isn't part of the band at all; he behaves more like a ghost than a machine. Later games tie him to Fredbear, the original yellow bear mascot, and to the fifth murdered child.
The Puppet
Marionette · Prize Corner
The Puppet is a tall, thin marionette with a white mask and tear streaks, kept calm in FNAF 2 by a music box you must wind remotely. Let the music stop and it comes for you no matter what. Lore-wise it's one of the most important characters in the series: it contains the spirit of the first child Afton killed, and it's the one that gave the other victims new life inside the animatronics.
Toy Freddy
Toy animatronic · 1987 reopening
Toy Freddy is the glossy, rosy-cheeked redesign built for the restaurant's grand reopening in FNAF 2. Phone Guy says the Toys were fitted with facial recognition tied to a criminal database, which doesn't stop them treating the night guard as a threat. In Ultimate Custom Night he gets a comic cameo, retired and playing video games instead of hunting you.
Toy Bonnie
Toy animatronic · Guitarist
Toy Bonnie is a bright blue rabbit with green eyes, rosy cheeks and a red bow tie. He crawls through the right air vent in FNAF 2 and leans into your face while you wear the Freddy mask, one of the series' most unnerving close-ups. The cute, plastic look makes the aggression feel worse.
Toy Chica
Toy animatronic · Singer
Toy Chica is the pageant-pretty Toy version of Chica, carrying her cupcake on a plate. When she leaves the stage at night, her beak comes off and her eyes go black. That small transformation sums up the whole Toy line: polished on the surface, hollow underneath.
Mangle
Toy Foxy · Kid's Cove
Mangle began as Toy Foxy, a white-and-pink fox for the youngest children. Kids pulled it apart so often that staff stopped putting it back together properly, leaving a tangle of wires, limbs and a second endoskeleton head. It crawls across the ceiling and gives off radio static, and fans have argued for years over whether Mangle caused the Bite of '87.
Springtrap
FNAF 3 · William Afton's corpse in a suit
Springtrap is a rotting Spring Bonnie suit found sealed in a back room of an old Freddy's. Inside is the body of William Afton, killed when the suit's spring locks snapped shut around him. He's the only animatronic in FNAF 3 that can actually kill you; everything else is a burnt-out hallucination. Knowing what is inside him makes him the franchise's most disturbing design.
Circus Baby
Star of Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental
Circus Baby is a clown-girl animatronic designed by William Afton, secretly built to lure and capture children. His own daughter, Elizabeth, was killed by her. Baby guides the player through Sister Location with a calm, helpful voice that you're never quite sure you can trust. She becomes one of the series' most layered characters through Pizzeria Simulator.
Ballora
Ballerina · Ballora Gallery
Ballora is a graceful ballerina who dances through her gallery with her eyes closed, hunting purely by sound while she sings softly to herself. Her gentle music-box theme makes her Sister Location's eeriest presence. Her parts later become part of Ennard.
Funtime Freddy
Funtime animatronic · Breaker Room
Funtime Freddy is the white-and-purple Freddy of Sister Location, with a hand puppet called Bon-Bon on his arm. He swings between party-host cheer and shouting menace, and the Breaker Room night spent keeping him at bay is one of the tensest sequences in the series. Like every Funtime, he was built with a hidden compartment meant for a child.
Funtime Foxy
Funtime animatronic · Funtime Auditorium
Funtime Foxy is a sleek pink-and-white fox who performs in a pitch-black auditorium. You cross it using only a flash beacon, and moving at the wrong moment means a lunge from the dark. Its parts also end up in Ennard.
Glamrock Freddy
Security Breach · Gregory's protector
Glamrock Freddy is the rock-star frontman of the Mega Pizzaplex, and the first Freddy who is plainly on your side. He hides Gregory inside his chest cavity, apologises when he glitches, and gets upgraded with parts taken from his bandmates. That gentle-giant personality is a deliberate reversal of everything the series did with Freddy before.
Glamrock Chica
Security Breach · Glamrock band
Glamrock Chica is a bubbly performer with an uncontrollable appetite for pizza, and for rubbish when there's no pizza around. Under Vanny's influence she stalks Gregory through the Pizzaplex. Taking her voice box in the Rehearsal Room is one of the game's key story beats.
Montgomery Gator
Security Breach · Glamrock band
Monty is the band's furious alligator, all star-shaped sunglasses and mohawk. He replaced Glamrock Bonnie, whose disappearance is one of the game's side mysteries, and he wrecks his own mini-golf attraction in a rage. His claws are one of Freddy's upgrades.
Roxanne Wolf
Security Breach · Glamrock band
Roxy is the band's vain, competitive wolf, built around her raceway attraction. Alone in her room she repeats confident affirmations to her reflection, which shows how much insecurity sits under the bravado. Her eyes, once you take them, let Freddy see through walls.
The Afton family
Most of FNAF's story is really the story of one family. The Aftons appear across nearly every game, often in disguise, and working out who is who was the fan community's main project for years.
William Afton
The Purple Guy · Co-founder and murderer
William Afton co-founded the company behind Fredbear's Family Diner and Freddy Fazbear's Pizza with Henry Emily, then used its restaurants to murder children, hiding their bodies inside the animatronics. In the early minigames he's simply a purple figure. He dies inside a spring-lock suit and returns as Springtrap, then as Scraptrap, then as Glitchtrap, a digital ghost living in VR code, and finally as Burntrap. His refusal to stay dead is the series' running horror.
Michael Afton
Eldest son · Sister Location protagonist
Michael is William's oldest child. In FNAF 4 flashbacks he's the older brother who torments his sibling while wearing a Foxy mask. As an adult he works nights at Circus Baby's rental facility in Sister Location, survives being "scooped" and spends the rest of his life trying to undo his father's work. Most fans read him as the night guard in the final night of Pizzeria Simulator.
Elizabeth Afton
Only daughter · Circus Baby
Elizabeth was William's daughter. She adored Circus Baby, ignored her father's warning to stay away, and was killed by the machine he had built. Her mind lives on inside Baby, which colours everything Baby says to Michael in Sister Location.
The Crying Child
Youngest son · FNAF 4
The Crying Child is the youngest Afton, the boy you play in FNAF 4's bedroom. Terrified of the animatronics and bullied by his brother, he's pushed into Fredbear's mouth and badly bitten, an incident fans call the Bite of '83. His story is the emotional centre of FNAF 4, and the end of that game suggests his is one of the souls the Puppet gave a home.
Night guards and other humans
You spend most of the series as one of these people, usually staring at a camera feed. Several of them are barely characters at all, which is part of why fan theories about them run so deep.
Mike Schmidt
FNAF 1 night guard
Mike is the guard you play in the original game, surviving five nights (and two extra) at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on a dwindling power supply. The games tell you almost nothing about him, which made him a magnet for identity theories. The 2023 film reimagines him as a struggling young man raising his little sister and haunted by his brother's disappearance.
Phone Guy
Voice on the answering machine
Phone Guy is the unnamed employee who leaves you cheerful, rambling messages explaining the job in FNAF 1 and 2, and in recordings found in FNAF 3. His calls are where most of the early lore comes from. He's voiced by Scott Cawthon himself, and his final message in the first game ends very badly.
Jeremy Fitzgerald
FNAF 2 night guard
Jeremy is the guard during FNAF 2's week at the newly reopened restaurant, defended only by an empty Freddy mask and a flashlight. His paycheck shows his name, and he's moved to the day shift at the end of the week, which is where many fans place him at the time of the Bite of '87.
Fritz Smith
FNAF 2 custom-night guard
Fritz takes over for FNAF 2's seventh night and is fired the next day for tampering with the animatronics. He's a tiny role, but his name reappears in later material, which keeps theory channels busy.
Henry Emily
Co-founder · Pizzeria Simulator
Henry is William Afton's business partner and the man who built many of the original animatronics. His daughter Charlotte was Afton's first victim. In Pizzeria Simulator he lures the remaining haunted animatronics into one building and burns it down, closing out the original story arc with a long, mournful speech.
Charlie Emily
Henry's daughter · The Puppet
Charlotte, usually called Charlie, died outside the restaurant and became the spirit inside the Puppet. In the games she's the protector of the other victims; in the novels a version of her is the lead character, and the books treat her very differently.
The Missing Children
Victims inside the original animatronics
Five children vanished at a Freddy's location, and their spirits possess Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Golden Freddy. In FNAF 3's happy ending, their ghosts are finally set free. Hidden material later linked them to names (Gabriel, Jeremy, Susie, Fritz and Cassidy), though which child is in which suit is still argued over.
Vanessa and Vanny
Help Wanted and Security Breach
In Security Breach, Vanessa is the Pizzaplex night security guard who sweeps the halls with a flashlight, while Vanny, a giggling figure in a white rabbit suit, stalks Gregory. They are the same person: Vanessa's mind has been taken over by Glitchtrap, who escaped from the VR code of Help Wanted. She's one of the few FNAF villains who is also a victim.
Gregory
Security Breach protagonist
Gregory is a resourceful boy trapped overnight inside the Mega Pizzaplex, who has to outlast Vanny, Vanessa and the corrupted Glamrocks until 6 AM. His partnership with Glamrock Freddy gives the series its first real protector-and-child story. Where he came from is deliberately left unclear.
Cassie
Ruin DLC protagonist
Cassie is Gregory's friend who goes into the wrecked Pizzaplex in the Ruin DLC after hearing from him over a walkie-talkie. She explores with an AR headset and gets help from a badly damaged Roxy. It's a smaller story, but it introduced the Mimic to the games.
The Mimic
Ruin and Secret of the Mimic
The Mimic is a learning endoskeleton built by the toymaker Edwin Murray, designed to copy what it sees and hears. First introduced in the Tales from the Pizzaplex books, it appears in Ruin and is the antagonist of Secret of the Mimic (2025). It's the first major threat in the series with an origin of its own, separate from Afton.
Glitchtrap
Help Wanted · Afton's digital ghost
Glitchtrap is a man in a Spring Bonnie suit who appears hidden in the code of Help Wanted's VR games. He's what's left of William Afton's mind after Pizzeria Simulator, and his influence carries over to Vanessa in Security Breach. He's software rather than a machine, so he's not really an animatronic at all.
FNAF game timeline
This is the release order of the main games, which is also the best order to discover the story in. Each one brought in a new set of animatronics; the full lists are on the animatronics page.
- 2014 Five Nights at Freddy's (August): Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Golden Freddy, with Mike Schmidt in the office.
- 2014 Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (November): a prequel with the Toys, the Withered originals, Mangle, Balloon Boy and the Puppet.
- 2015 Five Nights at Freddy's 3 (March): thirty years later, at the horror attraction Fazbear's Fright, with Springtrap and the Phantoms.
- 2015 Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (July): the Nightmare animatronics and the Crying Child's bedroom.
- 2016 FNAF World (January): a cheerful RPG spin-off that hides more lore than it first appears to.
- 2016 Sister Location (October): Circus Baby, the Funtimes and Michael Afton.
- 2017 Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator (December): the Rockstars, Lefty and the salvaged animatronics, and the end of the original story.
- 2018 Ultimate Custom Night: a free sandbox of around 50 characters from across the series.
- 2019 Help Wanted: VR remakes of the classic games and the arrival of Glitchtrap.
- 2021 Security Breach (December): the Glamrocks, Gregory and Vanny in the Mega Pizzaplex.
- 2023 Security Breach: Ruin and Help Wanted 2 (December), plus the first film in October.
- 2024 Into the Pit: a pixel-art adventure adapted from a Fazbear Frights story.
- 2025 Secret of the Mimic (June), and the second film in December.
Around the games sits a large shelf of books: The Silver Eyes trilogy, the Fazbear Frights anthology series and Tales from the Pizzaplex. The novels run on their own continuity, but the anthologies feed characters and ideas back into the games. The Mimic and Into the Pit both started there.
The FNAF movies
Blumhouse's Five Nights at Freddy's reached cinemas and Peacock in October 2023, directed by Emma Tammi from a script co-written by Scott Cawthon. The animatronics were built as practical puppets by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which gave Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy real weight on screen. It became a major box-office hit despite poor reviews, largely because it was made for the fans who'd grown up on the games.
The film keeps the games' bones (a night guard, a closed-down Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, murdered children inside the suits) but builds its own family story around Mike Schmidt. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 followed in December 2025, again directed by Tammi, with Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail and Piper Rubio returning. As the title suggests, it draws on the second game.
| Character | Actor | Role in the film |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Schmidt | Josh Hutcherson | Night guard searching for answers about his brother's disappearance |
| Vanessa | Elizabeth Lail | Police officer who knows more about the pizzeria than she says |
| Abby Schmidt | Piper Rubio | Mike's little sister, who befriends the animatronics |
| Aunt Jane | Mary Stuart Masterson | Mike's aunt, fighting him for custody of Abby |
| Steve Raglan / William Afton | Matthew Lillard | Career counsellor who gets Mike the job |
If you're working out which film or game to start with, our watch order guide covers how to approach franchises that span several media.
Why FNAF's characters stick
FNAF works because its characters are two things at once. The animatronics are cheerful children's entertainers and also murder victims trapped in metal. Freddy is a mascot and a coffin. That double reading is what powers the jumpscares and the lore at the same time:
- The victims are the monsters. The animatronics that attack you are children who can't rest. FNAF 3's good ending, where they're finally freed, lands because you've spent three games afraid of them.
- The real villain is a person. William Afton never needs supernatural power to be the scariest thing in the series. He's a businessman who built the machines for his own ends, which is why he sits so high on any list of great game villains.
- Family is the wound. The Aftons, Henry and Charlie, Mike and Abby in the film: almost every story here is about parents failing children.
- The later games soften the mascots. Glamrock Freddy and Security Breach turn Freddy into a protector, a sign of how the audience has grown up with him.
If you like that mix of cute design and dread, FNAF's influence is everywhere now. The Roblox hit Dandy's World owes a clear debt to it, as does much of the indie horror scene, and Undertale shares its love of hidden lore and fourth-wall tricks. For a sense of how FNAF fits into Roblox and YouTube culture more broadly, see our Roblox characters guide.
All FNAF character names A–Z
This list covers the characters profiled on this page. Every animatronic variant, from Balloon Boy to the Mediocre Melodies, is listed on the animatronics page.
A–B
- Abby Schmidt — film
- Ballora — Sister Location
- Bonnie — FNAF 1
C
- Cassie — Ruin
- Charlie Emily — victim
- Chica — FNAF 1
- Circus Baby — Sister Location
- Crying Child — FNAF 4
E–F
- Elizabeth Afton — Afton family
- Foxy — FNAF 1
- Freddy Fazbear — FNAF 1
- Fritz Smith — FNAF 2
- Funtime Foxy — Sister Location
- Funtime Freddy — Sister Location
G
- Glamrock Chica — Security Breach
- Glamrock Freddy — Security Breach
- Glitchtrap — Help Wanted
- Golden Freddy — FNAF 1
- Gregory — Security Breach
H–J
- Henry Emily — co-founder
- Jeremy Fitzgerald — FNAF 2
M
- Mangle — FNAF 2
- Michael Afton — Afton family
- Mike Schmidt — FNAF 1
- Mimic — Secret of the Mimic
- Montgomery Gator — Security Breach
P–R
- Phone Guy — FNAF 1–3
- Puppet — FNAF 2
- Roxanne Wolf — Security Breach
S–T
- Springtrap — FNAF 3
- Toy Bonnie — FNAF 2
- Toy Chica — FNAF 2
- Toy Freddy — FNAF 2
V–W
- Vanessa / Vanny — Security Breach
- William Afton — villain
Frequently asked questions
How many FNAF characters are there?
It depends what you count. The mainline games contain roughly 60 distinct animatronics, and well over 100 once you include skins, variants and DLC models. Add the human cast from the games, books and films and the total climbs past 150. Our FNAF animatronics list sorts every machine by the game it debuted in.
Who is the main villain in FNAF?
William Afton, the Purple Guy. He co-founded the company behind Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, murdered the children whose souls haunt the animatronics, and keeps returning in new forms: Springtrap, Scraptrap, the digital Glitchtrap and finally Burntrap in Security Breach.
What are the original FNAF characters?
The 2014 game has four main animatronics, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the bunny, Chica the chicken and Foxy the pirate fox, plus the secret Golden Freddy. You play night guard Mike Schmidt, and Phone Guy talks you through each night with recorded messages.
Who is Vanny in FNAF: Security Breach?
Vanny is the masked figure in a white rabbit costume who hunts Gregory through the Mega Pizzaplex. She is Vanessa, a security guard whose mind was taken over by Glitchtrap, the digital remnant of William Afton, after the events of Help Wanted.
Who is Gregory in FNAF?
Gregory is the child protagonist of Security Breach, trapped overnight inside the Mega Pizzaplex. Glamrock Freddy hides him and helps him survive until 6 AM. In the Ruin DLC his friend Cassie goes looking for him in the wrecked Pizzaplex.
Who plays William Afton in the FNAF movie?
Matthew Lillard plays William Afton in the 2023 film, where he first appears as the career counsellor Steve Raglan. He returned for the sequel, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, released in December 2025.
What order should I play the FNAF games in?
Release order is the easiest way in: FNAF 1, 2, 3, 4, Sister Location, Pizzeria Simulator, then Help Wanted and Security Breach. Each game reveals the lore in the order it was designed to be discovered, which matters more than chronology for a mystery series.