A lot of the RWBY characters are based on or made similar to popular storybook characters. eg:
Are there any other characters that were based on other stories?
This isn't a perfect answer but most of these seem fairly accurate.
Basically, for some reason, I thought it’d be fun to list the current known characters/stories that characters are based on thus far. So, yay?
First of all, before the break, just gonna point out…
Neo: Not the Cheshire Cat. That’s all I know. Not the Cheshire Cat, but apparently someone else might be Cheshire.
Team RWBY’s theme is fairy tales.
Ruby Rose: Little Red Riding Hood
Weiss Schnee: Snow White
Blake Belladonna: Belle/beauty, of Beauty and the Beast
Yang Xiao Long: Goldilocks
Team JNPR’s theme is people who dressed as the opposite sex.
Jaune Arc: Joan of Arc
Nora Valkyrie: Thor (Apparently once crossdressed to get Mjolnir back.)
Pyrrha Nikos: Achilles (Apparently once crossdressed as a red-haired woman named Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos has been noted in volume 2 to be nicknamed The Invincible Girl.)
Lie Ren: Mulan
Onto other peeps.
Cardin Winchester: Henry Beaufort, the Cardinal of Winchester, who was responsible for Joan of Arc being burned at the stake.
Velvet Scarlatina: The Velveteen Rabbit
Ozpin: Oz, from the Wizard of Oz (duh?)
Glynda Goodwitch: Glenda the Good Witch, from Wizard of Oz (duh??)
Ironwood: Tin Man, from Wizard of Oz (Apparently?!)
Penny: Pinocchio
Peter Port: Peter, from Peter and the Wolf
Bartholomew Oobleck: Bartholomew, from Bartholomew and the Oobleck
Adam Taurus: Probably Beast, from Beauty and the Beast
The White Fang: White Fang, from… White Fang, by Jack London
Cinder Fall: Cinderella (Confirmed by Miles and Kerry)
Roman Torchwick: Lampwick/Candlewick, from Pinocchio
Mercury Black: Mercury/Hermes (note his symbol is a shoe with a wing on it)
Sun Wukong: Sun Wukong, from Journey to the West
Neptune: Neptune/Poseidon
Junior (Hei Xiong): Baby bear, from the tale of Goldilocks (His name literally means Black Bear)
(Bonus: Characters who we don’t know the basis of but have some ideas)
Emerald Sustrai: Maybe Aladdin or Cleopatra
Summer Rose: The poem The Last Rose of Summer
Winter Schnee: Perhaps the Snow Queen (on which Frozen is based)
Fox: Tod the fox from The Fox and the Hound, or Inari the fox god
Qrow: Scarecrow, from The Wizard of Oz
In reply to Chrono D:
Actually, Qrow and Raven Branwen are based off of Odin's twin Ravens, Hugin and Munin. Scarecrow will most likely be the Vacuo headmaster, as Lionheart, the Minstral headmaster, was based off the Cowardly Lion.
There's also a theory that team RWBY double as versions of Dorothy and her companions as well (weiss as the tin man, blake as the cowardly lion, and yang as the scarecrow). The difference is the headmaster's weve seen so far were them without what they searched for, while weiss blake and yang have found their heart, courage, and brains by journeying with Ruby. The headmasters likely had no "Dorothy" to help them.
