L’s personality is shrouded in considerable mystery.
What was his origin?
What sparked his passion for criminal justice?
Who knows what his real name is?
The narrative of Death Note and one or two novellas based on L hide the specifics of his history.
So what do we know about his real identity?
What’s the significance of his numerous nicknames?
Let’s investigate the specifics to find out.
History of L
According to the “Death Note: Last Note,” L was born on October 31.
His biological parents are unknown, but Watari, whose true name is Quillish Wammy, reared him in Wammy’s home, a talented orphanage in England as if he were his own.
Each youngster was given a pseudonym; their real names were never revealed.
We can assume that “L” is a part of his alias and that as he became interested in criminal cases, this name eventually became well-known.
He quickly became known as the best detective in the whole world, which led him to take on many more fake names.
The History of L’s Numerous Names
The following is a list of the several names L has gone by in the Death Note setting:
L
Although it is also a component of his name, this is his most well-known alias.
Every Death Note adaptation and the Death Note manga have both utilized this name.
Hideki Ryuga
The well-known singer and actor Hideki Ryuga from the Death Note series served as the inspiration for L’s identity.
Light deduced that L gave him this moniker on purpose when they first met at To-Oh University to catch him using the Death Note.
Ryuzaki or Ryuzaki Rue
This identity was offered by L to the Task Force investigating the Death Note case.
L requested that everyone on the Task Force refer to him by this name out of an abundance of caution.
In the book Death Note: Another Note, Naomi Misora works with L on a case, but for identical reasons, he requests that she call him Rue Ryuzaki.
You can expect a surprising twist if you haven’t read this story yet.
Eraldo Coil
L uses this moniker to refer to the best detective in the world after himself. He acquired this alias after receiving it from a person who claimed to be Eraldo Coil.
In Death Note: Another Note, this is mentioned. L informed the Task Force that this name was being used for security purposes.
The Deneuve
This was a different investigator from Eraldo Coil who purportedly “lost” his name to L in the light novel Death Note: Another Note.
Mello claimed that the “detective war” that resulted in the loss of their names was a contest of intelligence. The third-best detective goes by this name.
The L-Prime
In the television program L: Change the World, this alias was employed.
What does L’s Origin mean to the Death Note Creators?
Although we all know he’s still a big mystery, L appears to employ various names for tactical and security reasons. When Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata created him, they had this in mind exactly.
L was never intended to be a public work. Though everything about him was gradually disclosed, the more you discovered about him, the less you comprehended.
You can see for yourself that Ohba and Obata genuinely wanted L to be unattractive, contrast Light completely, and not be taken seriously as a detective in the book Death Note 13: How To Read, which served as a guide to the series and revealed detailed information of each character and commentary from the creator.
This leads us to the hypothesis that L’s several names were chosen specifically to increase his uncertainty and oddity.
L is shrouded in a plethora of mysteries, which were only heightened by the fact that occasionally even Light was unable to comprehend what was going on within his thoughts.
While some characters lived and died, they were never aware of L’s real name. Only Watari, Ryuk, and possibly Rem would know.
Real Name of L
What was L’s actual name then? L. Lawliet would be that. Death Note 13: How To Read contains his entire name. It should be pronounced “low light.” French-born Lawliet is a fairly uncommon name.
Many fans were shocked to learn that L didn’t have a Japanese name. L was born and reared in England and is not only Japanese.
L is most likely a quarter English, a quarter Japanese, a quarter French, and a quarter Russian, according to the inventors.
L would therefore have a name that would be more European given his ethnicity. L’s real name is complicated further by the fact that no one knows who his parents are.
His alias changed to his real name after Watari discovered him. Consequently, “L” is his initial name and “Lawliet” is his surname name.
Other Wammy’s House characters have strange names, but L is the only one whose alias is also his true identity.
If L is anything, he is the kind of person that defies easy classification. We all want to know more about L because of his intricate yet enigmatic past, which makes his origin and name even more fascinating.
The creators claim that despite Watari treating him like a son, he never spoke to his biological parents.
My fellow Death Note enthusiasts, we can dig all we want, but this is all we know about L’s name.
We’ll be the first to delve into L’s past if Obata and Ohba ever feel motivated to examine more of it.
