Escanor is a medieval Arthurian name from French romance tradition, associated with chivalric literature.
Escanor has a layered history that stretches from medieval Arthurian romance to twenty-first-century manga. In the Arthurian tradition, Escanor was a knight who appeared in several Old French prose cycles, most notably as an antagonist of Gawain. The name's etymology is uncertain — it may derive from a Celtic or Old French root — but its presence in medieval literature gives it genuine antiquity within the Western heroic naming tradition, placing it alongside Percival, Lancelot, and Galahad as a name born from the chivalric imagination.
The name gained enormous contemporary visibility through Nakaba Suzuki's manga series The Seven Deadly Sins (Nanatsu no Taizai), serialized from 2012 to 2020 and subsequently adapted into a popular anime. Suzuki's Escanor is the Lion's Sin of Pride, a man of extraordinary power who transforms from a meek figure at night into an invincible giant by day, his power peaking at noon. The character became one of the series' most beloved figures — his catchphrase 'Who decided that?'
and his final sacrifice made him iconic among anime fans worldwide. Crucially, Suzuki named the character with apparent awareness of the Arthurian precedent, anchoring modern fantasy to medieval legend. For parents of the anime generation, naming a child Escanor is an act of cultural inheritance that connects contemporary pop mythology to its deeper literary roots. The name is rare enough in English-speaking countries to feel genuinely distinctive, yet carries enough narrative weight — both medieval and modern — to reward anyone curious enough to trace its lineage.