Yoshiki Tanaka, the author of the original Legend of the Galactic Heroes, uses real history and mythology as inspiration for many of the names and events within LoGH. Many Imperial names are derived from Prussian and Norse sources, while Alliance names come from a wide variety of mythos. However, this is not always obvious, as the Japanese romanizations of these names are often very different from their original forms.

The purpose of this section is to explain the historical or mythological significance of many of the names used by Tanaka in LoGH. Each link below goes to an individual page detailing a name used in the series and its significance in both reality and the series. 

Entries are in alphabetical order of the name as it was spelled in the anime, with the actual historical spelling in parentheses, if different.