If you searched for “devil named”, you are probably looking for the many names given to the devil in folklore, literature, and religious tradition. Across cultures and centuries, the figure of the devil has collected dozens of names, titles, and nicknames, each revealing something about how different societies understood evil, temptation, and the supernatural. This guide explores the most famous devil names, where they come from, and how they appear in stories.
Satan and Lucifer: The Two Best-Known Names
The name Satan comes from Hebrew, where ha-satan means “the adversary” or “the accuser”. In the Hebrew Bible, the term originally described a role, an opponent or prosecutor, rather than a single being. Over time, in Jewish and Christian tradition, Satan became a proper name for the chief adversary of God and humanity, a fallen angel who tempts people toward wrongdoing.
Lucifer is a Latin name meaning “light-bringer” or “morning star”. It comes from a passage in the Book of Isaiah describing the fall of a proud king, which later readers interpreted as describing a fallen angel. The name Lucifer became attached to the story of an angel who rebelled out of pride and fell from heaven. In literature, from Dante to Milton, Lucifer is portrayed as beautiful, intelligent, and tragically proud, a figure whose rebellion and fall became one of the great stories of Western imagination.
Beelzebub and Other Biblical Names
Beelzebub is another ancient name, originally the name of a Philistine god, Baal-Zebub, meaning “lord of the flies”. In the New Testament, Beelzebub is used as a name for a prince of demons, and in later tradition he became one of the devil’s chief lieutenants. The name’s journey from a local deity to a demon shows how older gods were often reinterpreted as evil spirits by later religions.
Other biblical and traditional names include Belial, meaning worthlessness, used to describe wickedness itself, and Abaddon or Apollyon, meaning destroyer, a figure associated with the abyss. The serpent of Eden, although never named as the devil in the original Genesis text, became identified with Satan in later Christian interpretation, adding “the serpent” and “the dragon” to the list of devilish titles.
Mephistopheles and the Faust Legend
Mephistopheles, often shortened to Mephisto, is the demon of the Faust legend, the scholar who sells his soul in exchange for knowledge and pleasure. The name first appears in the sixteenth century, and its exact origin is uncertain, although it may combine Greek words suggesting a lover of darkness or a destroyer of light. Goethe’s Faust made Mephistopheles one of the most famous devils in literature: witty, cynical, and sophisticated, a tempter who works through conversation and bargains rather than force.
The Faust story has been retold in plays, operas, novels, and films for centuries, and Mephistopheles has become a template for the charming, intelligent devil. Unlike the monstrous demons of medieval art, Mephistopheles is urbane and persuasive, which is precisely what makes him dangerous in the story. His name is now used figuratively for any cunning, cynical tempter.
Old Nick, Old Scratch, and Folk Nicknames
English folklore gave the devil a host of nicknames, often used to avoid saying his name directly. Old Nick is one of the oldest, possibly from a shortening of Nicholas or from an old word for a water spirit. Old Scratch comes from a Norse word for a goblin or demon. Other nicknames include the Old Gentleman, the Evil One, and, in Scotland, Auld Clootie, referring to cloven feet.
These nicknames reflect a folk attitude that treated the devil as a familiar, almost neighbourly figure, someone to be joked about and outwitted in stories rather than only feared. In folk tales, the devil is often tricked by clever farmers, tailors, and children, losing bargains through loopholes and wordplay. This trickster devil is very different from the terrifying figure of church art, and both versions have shaped how we imagine evil.
Devil Names in World Cultures
Many cultures have their own names for evil spirits or devil-like figures. In Islamic tradition, Iblis is the name of the being who refused to bow to Adam and became the tempter of humanity, while Shaitan is a general term for a devil or evil spirit. In Zoroastrianism, Angra Mainyu, also called Ahriman, is the destructive spirit opposed to the wise lord Ahura Mazda, in one of the world’s oldest dualistic religions.
In other traditions, figures such as Loki in Norse mythology or Set in Egyptian mythology play trickster or adversary roles, although they are not exact equivalents of the Christian devil. Comparing these figures shows that the idea of an adversary, a being who challenges order and tempts people from the right path, appears in many cultures, even when the names and stories differ greatly.
Devil Names in Literature and Film
Writers and film-makers have invented many devil names of their own. In C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape writes advice to his nephew Wormwood on tempting a human, and the book’s humour comes from seeing temptation as office routine. In popular film, the devil has appeared as Louis Cyphre, a name that rearranges into Lucifer, in Angel Heart, and as a charming lawyer in The Devil’s Advocate.
These inventions keep the tradition alive: each generation gives the devil a new name suited to its own anxieties, whether corporate, legal, or political. The devil remains a flexible symbol, useful for stories about temptation, power, and moral choice precisely because the figure can be renamed and reshaped endlessly.
Famous Devil Names at a Glance
| Name | Origin | Meaning or Role |
|---|---|---|
| Satan | Hebrew | The adversary, the accuser |
| Lucifer | Latin | Light-bringer, fallen angel |
| Beelzebub | Philistine, via Hebrew | Lord of the flies, prince of demons |
| Mephistopheles | Faust legend | The bargaining tempter |
| Old Nick | English folklore | Familiar nickname for the devil |
| Iblis | Islamic tradition | The refuser, tempter of humanity |
The Devil in Medieval Art
Medieval art gave the devil a vivid visual identity that still shapes how we picture him. In church paintings, stained glass, and manuscripts, the devil appeared with horns, a tail, cloven hooves, and sometimes bat-like wings, often coloured red or black. These features were borrowed from older nature spirits and pagan gods, deliberately recast as demonic to show the triumph of the church over earlier beliefs. The goat-like appearance, for instance, drew on the Greek god Pan, whose horns and goat legs were reinterpreted as marks of evil.
Medieval depictions also showed the devil’s kingdom in detail. Scenes of hell, such as those in Dante’s Inferno, presented a structured underworld with different punishments for different sins, presided over by a monstrous, multi-faced Satan frozen in ice at its centre. These images were not merely decoration; they were teaching tools for audiences who could not read, making abstract ideas about sin and judgement concrete and memorable. The visual language created in this period proved so powerful that it still dominates popular images of the devil today.
Interestingly, medieval art also showed the devil as a figure of mockery. In mystery plays performed in town squares, the devil was often a comic character, outwitted and ridiculed, whose antics entertained crowds. This comic devil coexisted with the terrifying one, showing that medieval people held both attitudes at once: fear of evil and confidence that it could be laughed at and defeated.
Devil Bargains in Folklore
Stories of bargains with the devil appear in folklore around the world, and they follow a recognisable pattern. A person in difficulty, often poor, ambitious, or desperate, is offered wealth, talent, or success in exchange for their soul, usually with a time limit. The bargain seems generous at first, but the devil’s terms contain a trap, and the story’s tension comes from whether the hero can escape it.
In many tales, escape comes through cleverness. A blacksmith promises his soul after seven years but uses the time to learn skills that let him outwit the devil. A fiddler wins a contest against the devil with a tune the devil cannot match. A farmer promises the devil the first crop from a field, then plants a crop whose valuable part grows underground, keeping the best for himself. These stories celebrate wit over power and suggest that even the mightiest adversary can be beaten by a sharp mind.
The bargain story also serves as a moral warning. It asks what a person is willing to trade for success, and whether shortcuts are worth their price. Modern retellings apply the same pattern to fame, fortune, and corporate ambition, showing that the old folk pattern still speaks to contemporary anxieties about the cost of getting what we want.
Why Devil Stories Endure
Devil stories endure because they dramatise a universal human experience: the struggle between doing what is right and doing what is tempting. A tempter who offers an easy path makes that struggle concrete and dramatic, giving storytellers a character through whom to explore moral choice. The devil’s many names reflect the many forms temptation can take: pride in Lucifer, appetite in Beelzebub, cunning in Mephistopheles, and familiarity in Old Nick.
The stories also endure because they are flexible. A devil can be terrifying, comic, sophisticated, or crude, depending on what a story needs. This flexibility has kept the figure alive through centuries of changing beliefs, from medieval mystery plays to modern horror films. As long as people tell stories about temptation and choice, the devil, under one name or another, will have a part to play.
What ‘devil named’ Means
Readers search for this term when they encounter a devil name in a book, film, or folk tale and want to know where it comes from. The devil’s many names span Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and English folklore, and each carries a story about how different cultures imagined evil. This guide collects the most important names and their origins.
Why ‘devil named’ Appears in Search Results
Search results for this term blend religious reference, literary analysis, and folklore, because the devil belongs to all three traditions at once. That blend is the point: the figure has been shaped by scripture, by writers like Milton and Goethe, and by ordinary storytellers, and each tradition added names that the others preserved.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the devil’s real name?
There is no single answer, because the devil is a figure of religious tradition and folklore rather than a historical person. Satan, Lucifer, and the other names in this guide are titles and interpretations that developed over centuries.
Are Satan and Lucifer the same figure?
In most Christian tradition, yes. Lucifer is understood as the devil’s name before his fall, and Satan as his name afterwards, although scholars debate the history of both names.
Why does the devil have so many names?
Because many cultures, languages, and centuries contributed to the figure. Each tradition added its own name, and writers and storytellers continue to add more.
Conclusion
From Satan and Lucifer to Mephistopheles and Old Nick, devil names form a rich catalogue of how humans have imagined evil, temptation, and rebellion. Some names come from ancient languages, some from scripture, and some from the imaginations of writers and storytellers. Together, they show that the devil is less a single character than a mirror, reflecting each culture’s fears, humour, and moral questions. Whether you meet these names in a book, a film, or a folk tale, knowing their origins makes the stories behind them even richer. For more folklore and literature explainers, see our guides to famous names in mythology and famous character groups.
