Quasimodo – Notre Dame Cathedral's 20-year-old hunchbacked bell ringer who dreams of seeing life outside the bell tower. Although Quasimodo is being constantly told by his guardian Judge Claude Frollo that he is an ugly monster, Clopin's opening song asks listeners to judge for themselves "who is the monster, and who is the man" of the two.

Esmeralda – A beautiful, streetwise Gypsy dancing girl who befriends Quasimodo and shows him that his soul is truly beautiful, even if his exterior is not. Highly independent and strong-minded, she abhors Frollo's treatment of Paris's gypsies and other outcasts, and seeks justice for them throughout the film. She falls in love with (and later marries) Captain Phoebus.