Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family.[3][4]
Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work.
— Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody [5]
| Real-life person | Character name |
|---|---|
| Jack Kerouac | Leo Percepied |
| Anton Rosenberg | Julien Alexander |
| Iris Brodie | Roxanne |
| William S. Burroughs | Frank Carmody |
| Joan Vollmer | Jane |
| Lucien Carr | Sam Vedder |
| Neal Cassady | Leroy |
| Gregory Corso | Yuri Gligoric |
| Allen Eager | Roger Beloit |
| William Gaddis | Harold Sand |
| Allen Ginsberg | Adam Moorad |
| Luanne Henderson | Annie |
| John Clellon Holmes | Balliol MacJones |
| Bill Keck | Fritz Nicholas |
| Alene Lee | Mardou Fox |
| Jerry Newman | Larry O'Hara |
| Gore Vidal | Arial Lavalina |
| David Diamond | Sylvester Strauss |
