The following is a list of main characters in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a team of mutant red-eared sliders named after four Renaissance artists and living in the sewers of New York City, where they train by day and fight crime by night as ninjas.
Leonardo is the calm and courageous leader of the Ninja Turtles. He is the most devoted student to Master Splinter and the study of Ninjutsu. Leo wears a blue mask and wields two katanas.
Raphael is the tough, sarcastic bad boy of the Ninja Turtles. Raph wears a red mask and wields a pair of sais.
Donatello is the scientist, inventor, engineer, and technological genius of the Ninja Turtles. Donnie wears a purple mask and wields a bo-staff. He's in love with April Harriet O'Neil
Michelangelo is the comedian and party dude of the Ninja Turtles. Mikey wears an orange mask and wields a pair of nunchucks. He also loves to give names to other mutants.
Splinter is the mutant rat sensei and adoptive father of the Ninja Turtles.
In the 1987 cartoon, Splinter (voiced by Peter Reneday) is Hamato Yoshi, mutated into a mutant brown rat alongside the Turtles, who he rescued from accidentally getting dropped down a storm drain after moving to New York.
In 2003 cartoon, Splinter is the rat pet of Hamoto Yoshi. Splinter mimicked Hamato Yoshi's movements while he was practicing. After Hamato Yoshi was murdered by Oroku Saki, he ran away from the cage and became homeless. One day, he witnessed a young boy carrying a glass jar of four pet infant turtles, who would later become the Ninja Turtles. Another boy next to the boy saw a blind man crossing the street and a truck was coming by. He saved the man. Meanwhile, the boy carrying the turtles accidentally dropped the glass jar. It broke and the turtles went right into a sewer. As the truck swerved, a canister with ooze in it bounced out from the back and went into the same sewer. It smashed, and the ooze covered their bodies. Splinter took pity of them, and he even got covered with some ooze. He and the turtles grew bigger in size and more intelligent the next day.