List of tomboys in fiction
This page lists tomboys in fiction. This is common, in fiction, as a number of characters have been described as tomboys in the past.
Anime and manga
| Characters | Title | Duration | Notes |
| Renny Ai | Ninja Senshi Tobikage | 1985-1986 | A cheerful tomboy who loves Jou. |
| Itsuki Akiba Nami | I"s | 2002-2003 2005-2006 | Akiba is a boyish girl who used to love Kazuki and wants to be a modeling artist. Nami is energetic and "manly" girl who is the best friend of Iori. |
| Fūko Kirisawa | Flame of Recca | 1995-2002 | A tomboyish girl who gets into fights with Recca, who she has a crush on. |
| Sarah McDougal | Love Hina | 2000 | Sarah is a mischevious girl and tomboy who has a lot of common sense. |
| Runo Misaki Mira Clay Fabia Sheen | Bakugan Battle Brawlers | 2007-2008 | Runo, a tomboyish girl, can act as a "sore loser," and sometimes impedes her team. She also is jealous of her friend, Julie, and has a crush on a male character, Dan, while she had a huge blade inside herself which can cut through anything. |
| Rin Natsuki | Yes! PreCure 5 | 2007-2008 | Rin is a middle school student in her second year who is "boyish," skilled at playing sports, and has a "girly side." |
| Rin | Nagasarete Airantō | 2002-Present | Rin is a "male carpenter apprentice girl" who has girlish qualities. |
| Kaoru Shimizu | Major | 1994-2010 | Kaoru is interested in baseball, has a "manly personality" and is a tomboy who has complex feelings toward her friend, Goro. |
| Haruka Tenoh | Sailor Moon | 1991-1997 | Haruka Tenou first appears as a race care driver and is dating a young violinist later shown to be Sailor Neptune, later revealing themselves as Sailor Uranus, and comes out as transgender. |
Comics
| Characters | Title | Duration | Author | Notes |
| Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Julie-Su, and Belle D'Coolette | Sonic the Hedgehog | 1992-2016 | Ken Penders Ian Flynn Michael Gallagher Dan Slott Karl Bollers Scott Fulop | Sally, Bunnie, Julie, and Belle are all tomboys. |
| Cleopatra | Cleopatra in Space graphic novel series | 2014-2020 | Mike Maihack | Cleopatra has been described as a "tomboy-ish 15 year-old girl." |
| Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt | Peanuts | 1950-2000 | Charles M. Schultz | She has freckles and "mousy-blah" hair, and generally displays the characteristics of a tomboy. |
| Valerie Smith | 'Josie and the Pussycats'' | 1963-1982, 1993, 2016-2017 | Marguerite Bennett Cameron DeOrdio others | In the comics, Valerie is more tomboyish than her two bandmates. Besides being good at science and a skilled auto mechanic, she occasionally shows a quick temper as well as being physically stronger than she might appear. |
Film
| Character | Title | Year | Actor | Notes |
| Addie Pray | Paper Moon | 2008 | Tatum O'Neal | A tomboyish nine-year-old girl who a con man, Moses Pray, claims is his daughter, and delivers her to her aunt's home in Missouri, later joining him in his con schemes. |
| Amanda "Manny" | Manny & Lo | 1996 | Scarlett Johansson | A tomboyish 11-year-old girl who runs away with her sister, Laurel "Lo," from their foster home. |
| Amanda Whurlitzer | The Bad News Bears | 1976 | Tatum O'Neal | An 11-year-old pitcher who feels insecure about her tomboy image. |
| Annabel Andrews | Freaky Friday | 1976 | Jodie Foster | Annabel, a tomboy, annoyed with her mother, switches places with her mother for one day. |
| Becky 'The Icebox' O'Shea | Little Giants | 1994 | Shawna Waldron | The tomboyish daughter of Danny O'Shea, a football player. |
| Billie | Billie | 1965 | Patty Duke | A 15-year-old girl with a bobbed haircut, tomboyish behavior, and passion for track running. |
| Billie Jean Davy | The Legend of Billie Jean | 1985 | Helen Slater | Billie is tomboyish teen from Corpus Christi, Texas, who later gains unwanted popularity. |
| Calamity Jane | Calamity Jane' | 1953 | Doris Day | Calamity is a shotgun messenger to the Dakota Territory playing the "tomboy role." |
| Carter Mason | Princess Protection Program | 2009 | Selena Gomez | Carter is a teenage girl and tomboy who lives in a small town in Louisiana. |
| Denise Fleming | Can't Hardly Wait | 1998 | Lauren Ambrose | Denise is the antisocial best friend of Preston Meyers and a tomboy. |
| Diana Guzman | Girlfight | 2000 | Michelle Rodriguez | A tomboyish Brooklyn teenager whose hot temper gets her into trouble at school as she repeatedly starts fights with other students. |
| Dinky Bossetti | Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael | 1990 | Winona Ryder | A 15-year-old girl who was adopted as a baby who has no interest in "feminine" things, such as makeup and nice clothing. |
| Edith | Despicable Me | 2010 | Dana Gaier | An orphan girl, and tomboy, who enters the enemy base while selling cookies. |
| Frankie Addams | The Member of the Wedding | 1952 | Julie Harris | Feeling rejected when her older brother goes off on his honeymoon without inviting her along, a tomboyish Frankie runs away from her middle-class Southern home. |
| Graham Eaton | But I’m a Cheerleader | 1999 | Clea DuVall | A tomboyish girl at the conversion therapy camp who becomes friend with Megan, and is more comfortable being gay than Megan, forced to come to the camp at the risk of otherwise being disowned by her family. |
| Hayley Stark | Hard Candy | 2005 | Ellen Page | Hayley a tomboyish 14-year-old which traps and torture a 32-year-old photographer who she says is a sexual predator. |
| Imogene "Idgie" Threadgoode | Fried Green Tomatoes | 1991 | Mary Stuart Masterson Nancy Moore Atchison | Tomboy Idgie is the youngest of the Threadgoode children, whom Ninny describes as her sister-in-law. |
| Jesminder "Jess" Kaur Bhamra Juliette "Jules" Paxton | Bend It Like Beckham | 2002 | Parminder Nagra Keira Knightley | Jess is 18-year-old daughter of British Indian Sikhs living in Hounslow, London while Juliette "Jules" Paxton is the same age and the daughter of a white English family, and both are tomboys. |
| Juno MacGuff | Juno | 2007 | Ellen Page | Juno is a 16-year-old girl who is a "comfortable tomboy" and trusts people depending on what type of music they like. |
| Kit Keller | A League of Their Own | 1992 | Lori Petty Kathleen Butler | A tomboyish pitcher on an all-girls baseball team. |
| Kristy Thomas | The Baby-Sitters Club | 1995 | Schuyler Fisk | Kristy is president of "The Baby-Sitters Club" and a tomboy. |
| Laure | Tomboy | 2011 | Zoé Héran | The story follows a 10-year-old gender non-conforming child, Laure, who moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holiday and experiments with their gender presentation, adopting the name Mikäel. |
| Margaret "Legs" Sadovsky "Goldie" Goldman | Foxfire | 1996 | Angelina Jolie Jenny Shimizu | Legs is a teenage girl and drifter in Portland high school, while Goldie is a fellow student, both of whom are tomboys suspended from school along with Rita, Violet, and Maddie. |
| Mary Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald | Million Dollar Baby | 2004 | Hilary Swank | A determined, aspiring boxer trained up by Frankie Dunn, who is also tomboyish. |
| Marjorie Winfield | On Moonlight Bay | 1951 | Doris Day | The grown tomboyish daughter of George and Alice who lives in a small Indiana town in the 1910s with her trouble-making brother Wesley, and an exasperated housekeeper named Stella. |
| Monica Wright | Love & Basketball | 2000 | Sanaa Lathan Kyla Pratt | Monica is a tomboyish girl who aspires become a professional basketball star and becomes romantically involved with Quincy McCall, who loves basketball as much as she does. |
| Mulan | Mulan Mulan II | 1998 2004 | Ming-Na Wen | Mulan takes her father's old armor and cutting her long hair, disguising herself as a man so that she can enlist instead of her parent. |
| Benio "Haikara-san" Hanamura | 2018 | Saori Hayami Mimi Torres | The movie follows the story of Benio who was, due to her mother's death raised by her father, meaning that she acts as a tomboy, "contrary to traditional Japanese notions of femininity." | |
| Roberta Martin | Now and Then | 1995 | Christina Ricci Rosie O'Donnell | Roberta is the proclaimed tomboy of the girls, stemming primarily from her upbringing in a family consisting of her father and three older brothers, her mother having died in a car accident when she was four. As a girl, she tapes her breasts to flatten them, plays sports, and never hesitates to fight a boy. |
| Samantha Swoboda | P.U.N.K.S. | 1999 | Jessica Alba | Samantha is a tomboy, Jonny's Cousin, a skilled car thief, and lockpick. |
| Sarah Baker | Cheaper by the Dozen Cheaper by the Dozen 2 | 2003 2005 | Alyson Stoner | Tom & Kate's cute tomboyish daughter |
| Jean Louise "Scout" Finch | To Kill a Mockingbird | 1962 | Mary Badham | A tomboyish young Scout and her pre-teen older brother Jem live in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the early 1930s. |
| Terri/Terry Griffith | Just One of the Guys | 1985 | Joyce Hyser | Terri Griffith is an aspiring teenage journalist, in Phoenix who feels that her teachers don't take her articles seriously because of her good looks, and later decides to disguise herself as a boy. |
| Vada Sultenfuss | My Girl | 1991 | Anna Chlumsky | Vada is an 11-year-old tomboyish girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1972. |
| Velvet Brown | National Velvet | 1944 | Elizabeth Taylor | National Velvet is the story of a 12-year-old, horse-crazy girl, Velvet Brown, who lives in the small town of Sewels in Sussex, England, who later participates in a horse race disguised as a boy. |
| Viola | She's The Man | 2006 | Amanda Bynes | Viola is a talented soccer player underestimated for being a girl, who dresses up as her brother Sebastian to play soccer at Illyria. |
| Watts | Some Kind of Wonderful'' | 1987 | Mary Stuart Masterson | Watts, the tomboyish friend of Keith Nelson, who has been subjected to rumors that she is a lesbian, aspires to improve her social standing. |
Literature
| Character | Title | Year | Author | Notes |
| Arya Stark | A Song of Ice and Fire | 1996–2011 | George R. R. Martin | Arya is the third child and younger daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and his wife Lady Catelyn Stark. She is tomboyish, headstrong, feisty, independent, disdains traditional female pursuits, and is often mistaken for a boy. |
| Becky Landers | Becky Landers: Frontier Warrior | 1926 | Constance Skinner | A 15-year-old tomboyish girl who forms a plan in 1778 to join Captain George Rogers Clark. |
| Caddie Woodlawn | Caddie Woodlawn | 1935 | Carol Ryrie Brink | Set in the 1860s, the novel is about a lively eleven-year-old tomboy named Caroline Augusta Woodlawn, nicknamed "Caddie", living in the area of Dunnville, Wisconsin. |
| Elizabeth "Lizard" Flanagan | Lizard Flanagan | 1994–1998 | Carol Gorman | Elizabeth, a 12-year-old girl struggles with transitioning from being a tomboy to being more "girly." |
| Emerson "Em" Watts | Airhead | 2008–2010 | Meg Cabot | The book is about a teenage girl whose life is forever changed by the tragic accident that leaves her taking the identity of a supermodel, Nikki Howard, and tries to let go of her tomboyish ways to take over Nikki's glamorous lifestyle. |
| Éowyn | The Lord of the Rings | 1954–1955 | J. R. R. Tolkien | She is a noblewoman of Rohan who calls herself a shieldmaiden and is tomboyish. |
| Frankie Addams | The Member of the Wedding | 1946 | Carson McCullers | Frankie is a 12-year-old tomboy who feels disconnected from the world. Also see the 1952 film |
| Georgina "George" Kirrin | The Famous Five | 1942–1962 | Enid Blyton | George is a tomboyish character who struggles with her gender. |
| Gypsy Breynton | Gypsy Breynton | 1866–1867 | Elizabeth Stuart Phelps | Gypsy goes from a tomboy to becoming a "selfless surrogate mother." |
| Idgie Threadgoode | Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe | 1987 | Fannie Flagg | Idgie is an unrepentant tomboy who had become reclusive. Also see the 1991 film. |
| Jamila Sinai | Midnight's Children | 1981 | Salman Rushdie | Jamila is the younger tomboyish sister of Saleem, nicknamed "the brass monkey" because of her thick thatch of red-gold hair and because she is conceived the night her father's assets are frozen by the state. |
| Josephine "Jo" March | Little Women | 1868–1869 | Louisa May Alcott | Jo is an aspiring writer and tomboyish girl. |
| Katy Carr | What Katy Did | 1872 | Susan Coolidge | 12-year-old tomboyish Katy Carr lives with her widowed father and her two brothers and three sisters in Burnet, a small midwestern American town. |
| Laura Ingalls | Little House on the Prairie | 1932–1943 | Laura Ingalls Wilder | Laura, a tomboyish girl, lives with a settler and pioneer family on the prairie and later becomes an accomplished writer. |
| Leslie Burke | Bridge to Terabithia | 1977 | Katherine Paterson | Leslie is a "fiesty tomboy" liked her friend, Jess. Also see the 2007 film. |
| Lyra Belacqua | His Dark Materials | 1995–2000 | Philip Pullman | Lyra is a wild 12-year-old tomboyish girl who grew up in the fictional Jordan College, Oxford. She prides herself on her capacity for mischief, especially her ability to lie, earning her the epithet "Silvertongue" from Iorek Byrnison. |
| Martha "Mickey" Bradley | Meredith's Ann | 1927 | Elizabeth Gray Vining | Mickey is a young tomboyish girl. |
| Mick Kelly | The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter | 1940 | Carson McCullers | Mick Kelly is a tomboyish girl who loves music and dreams of buying a piano. |
| Nan | Little Men | 1871 | Louisa May Alcott | Nan is even more of a willful tomboy than Jo was as a teenager. |
| Orphie Goodbye | The Goodbye Family | 2012–2020 | Lorin Morgan-Richards | A tomboyish girl, Orphie loves mischief and has the strength of 20 men, often finding herself filling in as sheriff of the town and training her pet spider Dorian. |
| Pippi Longstocking | Pippi Longstocking | 1945–1948 | Astrid Lindgren | Pippi is red-haired, freckled, unconventional and superhumanly strong tomboyish girl. |
| Rachel "Hellfire" Hotchkiss | Hellfire Hotchkiss | 1967 | Mark Twain | Hellfire is the female counterpart to Oscar "Thug" Carpenter, and was referred to by Twain as a tomboy. |
| Scout | To Kill A Mockingbird | 1960 | Harper Lee | A tomboyish girl, Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, lives with her older brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Also see the 1962 film. |
Plays and other media
| Characters | Title | Duration | Author | Notes |
| Anybodys | West Side Story | 1957-2020 | Arthur Laurents | Anybodys is a tomboy which informs the main characters that China has a gun and wants to enact revenge against Tony. |
| Ginger | Time Out For Ginger | 1952-1953 | Ronald Alexander | Ginger is a tomboy and high schooler. |
| Tsubasa Onodera | Love Get Chu | 2006 | ARiKO System | A tomboy girl who prefers to be the voice for boys instead of girls. |
Television
| Character | Portrayed by | Program | Duration | Notes |
| Ace | Sophie Aldred | Doctor Who | 1963-Present | Ace is a "streetwise tomboy" who likes pyrotechnics. |
| Alicia “Al” Lambert | Christine Lakin | Step by Step | 1991-1998 | Al, middle child in the Lambert family, is a tomboyish, all-American girl, who later matures and softens. |
| Alexandra "Alex" Mack | Larisa Oleynik | The Secret World of Alex Mack | 1994-1998 | Alex was considered a tomboy, with her character challenging gender norms. |
| Arya Stark | Maisie Williams | Game of Thrones | 2011-2019 | Arya is a tomboyish, headstrong, feisty, independent, disdains traditional female pursuits, and is often mistaken for a boy. |
| Ashley Funicello Spinelli | Pamela Adlon | Recess | 1997-2001 | Ashley is a tomboy who has en extreme loyalty to her friends. |
| Buttercup | E. G. Daily Jo Wyatt | The Powerpuff Girls | 1998-2005 | Buttercup is a "rough-and-tumble tomboy." |
| Cameron Howe | Mackenzie Davis | Halt and Catch Fire | 2014-2017 | Cameron is a tomboyish woman in her twenties who has a knack for programming and loves punk rock. |
| Carissa | Tabitha St. Germain Fanny Bloc | Lolirock | 2014-2017 | Carissa was drawn as a "fiery and tomboy warrior princess." |
| Darlene Conner | Sara Gilbert | Roseanne | 1998-2018 | Darlene is a tomboyish girl, which gives Roseanne a way she can "talkback to gender performance expectations." |
| Eve Baxter | Kaitlyn Dever | Last Man Standing | 2011-Present | Eve was originally a tomboyish girl who became a "little more girly" as the series progressed according to Kaitlyn Dever. |
| Jennifer 'Jen' Masterson | Megan Fahlenbock | 6teen | 2004-2010 | Jen is a tomboy who loves sports and wants to a snowboarder in the Olympics. |
| Joanna Marie "Jo" Polniaczek | Nancy McKeon | The Facts of Life | 1979-1988 | Early in the series, many of Jo's stories revolved around her tomboyish ways. |
| Mary-Kate Burke | Mary-Kate Olsen | Two of a Kind | 1998-1999 | Mary-Kate is a tomboyish girl who wants to perfect her curveball. |
| Maxine "Max" Mayfield | Sadie Sink | Stranger Things | 2016-Present | Max is Billy's younger stepsister, an avid skateboarder, and the tomboy of the group who catches the attention of both Lucas and Dustin. |
| Pipsqueak | Tajja Isen | The ZhuZhus | 2016-2017 | Pipsqueak is a hamster who is "all tomboy" and "firecracker." |
| Punky Brewster | Soleil Moon Frye | Punky Brewster | 1984-1988 | Punky is a "spunky seven-year-old tomboy." |
| Rainbow Dash | Ashleigh Ball | 2010-2019 | Rainbow Dash sports rainbow-striped hair, is very interested in playing sports, and is a tomboy whose sexual orientation is not referenced. | |
| Sathya | Ayesha | Sathya | 2019-Present | Sathya is a free-spirited, trustworthy, and brave tomboyish girl who gets married to a man named Prabhu. |
Video games
| Characters | Title | Year | Notes | Developer |
| Tsarevna Alena | ' | 1992-2016 | Tsarevna is a "fierce tomboy" who likes to fight and go on adventures. | Spike Chunsoft |
| Ashei | ' | 2006 | Ashei is a tomboyish girl who is a skilled swordfighter and is stronger than most men. | Nintendo |
| Baiken | Guilty Gear series | 1998 | Baiken is a tomboyish girl who knows how to use a katana, mace, fireworks cannon, and other weapons within the sleeve of her severed arm. | Arc System Works |
| Kumatora | Mother 3 | 2006 | Kumatora is the heir to the Ooshe castle and is described as a "tomboy princess." | Brownie Brown HAL Laboratory |
| Makoto Sakura | Street Fighter series | 1999-2008 1996-2018 | Makoto, who is a young Japanese woman raised from the Tosa Province of Japan who utilizes her family's dojo teachings of Rindo-kan karate as her fighting style, and Sakura, a young Japanese girl fighter who idolizes Ryu, are tomboys. | Capcom Dimps Arika Bandai Namco Studios |
| Narumi Mishima | 2008 | Narumi is a tomboy. | KID Cyberfront SDR Project | |
| Chie Satonaka | Persona series | 1996-2020 | Chie is a tomboy who is ubeat and has an obsession with kung fu, even using those techniques in battle. | Atlus |
| Sonshōkō | Koihime Enbu | 2016 | Sonshōkō is a spirited and vivacious tomboy. | UNKNOWN GAMES M2 Co.,LTD |
| Touko Zaizen | Inazuma Eleven 2 Kyoui no Shinryakusha | 2009 | Touko is a tomboy. | Level-5 |
| Ryune Zoldark | Super Robot Wars | 1991-2015 | Ryune is a beautiful girl and tomboy. | Winkysoft Banpresoft B.B. Studio Bandai Namco Entertainment |