15 Surprising Facts About Eren Jaeger Every 'Attack On Titan' Fan Needs To Know

Towards the end of Attack on Titan, Eren grows out his hair. When an interviewer asked Isayama why he did this, he said:

Right now he is in a state where he is no longer paying attention to how people view him, so he just let it grow out. Since he was supposed to be a hospitalized patient [when infiltrating Marley], he actually should’ve kept a cleaner hairstyle.

One of the things that Isayama was concerned about when creating Eren was the concept of bloodlines defining a protagonist. In the Attack on Titan Character Encyclopedia, Isayama claimed that he didn't want Eren to be a predestined hero who was born with special powers. This was common practice in manga, and he wanted Eren to be different. 

While his family certainly does impact his abilities and his destiny, Eren's whole deal is complicated enough that Isayama's original intentions still seem to apply. 

Unless you understand Japanese, you probably missed this detail. When Eren talks about Titans, he uses the suffix -hiki, which refers to small animals.

Titans are massive, so -tai, which is used for large animals, would make more sense. He uses -hiki to show how much he despises them. 

Just because someone creates a character doesn't mean that they have anything in common with them. In fact, Isayama said in Attack on Titan: The Anime Guide that he had difficulty writing Eren because they had so little in common.

He credits Yuki Kaji's anime portrayal of Eren with helping him to fully understand the character. 

Eren's given name is of Turkish origin. It means "he who progresses/has reached towards divine maturity and sacred wisdom" - or, more simply, a saint or holy person. It also resembles the German word Ehre, which is pluralize as Ehren. This word means "honor." Isayama says that he picked the name not so much because of its meaning but because it sounded feminine. He thought that a feminine name would be easier to remember. 

What about his last name, Jaeger? This is another way to spell Jäger, a German word that means "hunter." 

If you've mainly engaged with the anime, you probably think of Eren's hair as being brown. However, the manga initially depicted his hair as black.

In the Attack on Titan Character Encyclopedia, Isayama said that he chose black because Eren was such an energetic character, and it's easier to draw speed lines around someone with black hair. Hard to argue with that logic!