Each time you create a new character in Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) and reach the last stage of creation after spending hours choosing your race, class, background, abilities, and—most importantly— appearance, a name greets you: Tav, the default name in BG3.
You have the option to change it to any name with 20 characters max. Because the name section didn’t stand out in the character creation, many players ended up creating a character named Tav without noticing they could change the name.
Is Tav the canon name for BG3‘s main character?
No, Baldur’s Gate 3 main character doesn’t have a canon name. Some RPG games have canon names for the main character even if you can change them in-game like Link from older Legend of Zelda games, Frisk and Chara from Undertale, or all the different Persona main characters.
Tav is a nod to the project name when the game was still in development. Larian Studios’ founder and CEO Swen Vincke said in the Divinity: Original Sin documentary back in 2018 that their next thing after Divinity: Original Sin II was called Project Gustav, named after his dog.
Many .pak files also carry the name Gustav as well as that is the name of the character if you load the campaign in multiplayer. It’s definitely an homage to the beginnings of Baldur’s Gate 3‘s story and Vincke’s dog.
The CEO has the habit of using his dog’s names in his biggest projects as the studio itself—Larian Studios— is named after another of the CEO’s dogs.
