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Throughout the One Piece series, several pirates seem to be based upon real life pirates. Some of which are quite obvious

  • Like Blackbeard & Whitebeard. These names combined would be the real name of Blackbeard, Edward Teach.

And some are a bit less obvious, but still well known

Now my question is:

Are there more pirates in One Piece named after, or based upon real life pirates?

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Here is a list of known references to actual pirates used in One Piece (most of which are just borrows names) as mentioned on various sources:

  • Alvida - Awilda

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  • Bartolomeo - Bartholomew Roberts "Black Bart"

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  • Basil Hawkins - John Hawkins

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  • Bellamy - Samuel Bellamy

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  • Blackbeard - Edward Teach "Blackbeard"

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  • Cavendish - Thomas Cavendish:

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  • Charlotte Linlin (Big Mom) - Charlotte Badger

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  • Eustass Kid - William "Captain" Kidd:

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  • Gol D Roger - Olivier Levasseur:

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  • Jewelry Bonney - Anne Bonny

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  • Lafitte - Jean Lafitte:

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  • Roronoa Zoro - François l'Olonnais

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  • Scratchmen Apoo - Chui A-poo:

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  • Silvers Rayleigh - Sir Walter Raleigh:

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  • Thatch - Edward Thatch

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  • Urouge - Oruç Reis

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  • X Drake - Sir Francis Drake:

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  • Yorki - Calico Jack

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  • Zeff - "Red Legs" Greaves

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Although these are the references to actual pirates which was intended by Oda, there are also coincidental lookalikes to real life people which has been mentioned in this BuzzOtaku article.

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    Very comprehensive list, awesome.
    – Dimitri mx ♦
    Feb 25, 2016 at 14:39
  • Could you extend this list with Kaido - Napoleon? Aldo, maybe you coulf add that Law's name is a Waterloo reference
    – Bálint
    Jan 3, 2017 at 9:58
  • just noticed you used the same image for both belamy and teach. Are they the same person? or just inaccurate image?
    – Dimitri mx ♦
    Oct 30, 2017 at 14:16
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Well this list is not comprehensive but will be covering most of the famous pirates including most of the supernovas and the worst generation. All data is sourced for the One Piece Wikia and the various SBS answered by Oda.

  1. Yorki, the Rumbar Pirates Captain is based on Calico Jack.
  2. Alvida, the Alvida Pirates Captain is based on the pirate Awilda.
  3. Thatch, the 4th Division Commander, Whitebeard Pirates' name is based on Edward Thatch.
  4. Charlotte "Big Mom" Linlin, Yonku and Captain of the Big Mom Pirates is based on the pirate Charlotte Badger.
  5. Scratchmen Apoo, the On Air Pirates Captain is based on the chinese pirate Chui A-poo.
  6. Basil Hawkins, the Hawkin Pirates Captain's name is based on two pirates. His given name came from Basil Ringrose, while his surname came from John Hawkins
  7. Urouge, the Fallen Monk Pirates' captain is based on Oruç Reis.
  8. X Drake, the Drake Pirates Captain is based on the pirate Sir Francis Drake.
  9. Jewelry Bonney, the Bonney Pirates captain is based on the pirate Anne Bonny

There might be more but these were all I could find. Blackbeard and Whitebeard share their names with the pirate and are based on the pirate Edward Teach.

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I would like to add Hordy (sometimes spelled Hody) might be a reference to Vice Admiral Horthy Miklos. He was the leader of Hungary during world war 2 and fought in the Autro-Hungarian Navy during world war 1.

While the real life Horthy wasn't really racist, I can imagine that a Japanese Author would look at an Admiral who allied with Hitler as a convenient name-reference for the leader of a racist Fishman army. Tho it is just a slight name reference, nothing more.

I have written a book and know the pain of inventing names, cuz it needs to sound real and memorable and not just some gibberish. Often times when I need a new name I google a real life person who has a certain trait or characteristic connected with the fictional character (successful businessman, explorer, murderer, general, pacifist, poet, you name it) and then just edit the name slightly to make it a bit different. I'm sure other Authors do that too and as we can see above (like Alvida) the author of OP does it as well. I am sure there are many character names, places etc. that are slight references to real life people and places. Water 7 is obviously a reference to Venice, Impel down is Alcatraz, Head Warden Magelan is a reference to the explorer of the same name etc. etc.

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Alot of people say Thatch is edward thatch. But its actually edward teach aka blackbeard. Teach/blackbeard is based on teach/blackbeard. Thatch has no relevence to any real world pirate that im aware of

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