Major characters
- Patrick Bateman – the central narrator and villainous protagonist of the novel.
- Evelyn Richards – Bateman's supposed fiancée.
- Timothy Price – Bateman's best friend and colleague. Later appears as a teenager in Ellis's novel The Informers.
- Paul Owen – Bateman's colleague who is later murdered by Bateman.
- Jean – Bateman's secretary, whom Bateman refers to as "Jean, my secretary who is in love with me".
- Luis Carruthers – a closeted homosexual co-worker who is attracted to Bateman, something that disgusts the latter.
- Courtney Lawrence – Luis' fiancée who is having an affair with Bateman.
- Craig McDermott – Bateman's colleague, part of a social foursome alongside Bateman, Timothy Price and David Van Patten.
- David Van Patten – Bateman's colleague, also part of Bateman's main social group.
Minor characters
- "Christie" – a prostitute, employed and badly abused by Bateman on multiple occasions before he eventually murders her in a grisly fashion. Bateman gives her this name; her real one is never revealed.
- Elizabeth – a dinner date of Bateman's, drugged and coerced into having sex with "Christie" before being violently murdered.
- Marcus Halberstam – Bateman's colleague; Paul Owen repeatedly mistakes Bateman for Marcus.
- Donald Kimball – private detective hired to investigate Paul Owen's disappearance.
- Harold Carnes – Bateman’s lawyer who misidentifies him then refuses to believe Bateman’s confession at the climax of the novel.
- Alison Poole – sexually and physically assaulted by Bateman; created by Ellis's friend Jay McInerney in his novel Story of My Life[21] and based on McInerney's former girlfriend Rielle Hunter, reappears as a main character in Ellis's later novel Glamorama, where she is involved with the lead character, Victor Ward.
- Sean Bateman – younger brother of Patrick Bateman and also the lead character of The Rules of Attraction.
- Paul Denton – friend of Paul Owen, who also appears in The Rules of Attraction where he is possibly romantically involved with Patrick's brother Sean.
- Christopher Armstrong – Bateman's colleague at Pierce & Pierce.
- Bethany – an old girlfriend of Patrick's whom, after a date, he tortures and subsequently murders.
- Stash – Evelyn's friend, who is HIV positive.
- Vanden – Evelyn's friend from the East Village who claims to attend Camden College, the main setting of The Rules of Attraction.
- Al – a homeless man whom Bateman blinds and disfigures with a knife.
- Tom Cruise – lives in the same apartment building as Bateman, in the penthouse.
- Bono – the leader singer of Irish rock band U2. Appears in a chapter in which Bateman and his colleagues attend a U2 concert.
- Patty Winters – the host of a talk show which Bateman frequently views. As the novel progresses the subject of her programs become more and more absurd, implied to be no more than a figment of Bateman's imagination.
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