What is the name of the whale in 'Moby-Dick'?

The whale in Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick” is Moby Dick. He is a gigantic white sperm whale pursued obsessively by Captain Ahab, who seeks revenge after the whale bites off his leg during an earlier encounter.

Moby Dick is more than an ordinary animal in the story: he becomes a symbol onto which Ahab projects his anger, ambition, and ideas about fate. The novel’s narrator, Ishmael, describes the whale’s distinctive white head and hump, while the crew gradually turns Ahab’s private vendetta into a dangerous mission for the entire ship, the Pequod.

Melville drew inspiration from Mocha Dick, a reportedly aggressive albino sperm whale encountered by nineteenth-century whalers near Chile. He also incorporated details from the 1820 sinking of the whaling ship Essex. A common mix-up is calling the whale “the White Whale”; that is a descriptive title, not his canonical name. Ahab is the captain hunting him, while Leviathan is a biblical sea monster.