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The main character in the strip, Dilbert is a stereotypical technically-minded single male. He is usually pictured wearing a white dress shirt, black trousers and a red-and-black striped tie which inexplicably curves upward. In old Dilbert strips, his neck was long shaped. Over time, his neck has become smaller. Dilbert received his Masters degree in electrical engineering from MIT; he understands engineering well and has good ideas, but has a poor social life. Neither attractive nor blessed with tremendous social graces, Dilbert is capable but ignored at work, and struggles with his romantic life. While he is frequently seen having dates with eligible women, his dates almost invariably end in disaster, usually in surreal and bizarre ways. Dilbert loves computers and technology and will spend much of his free time playing with such things. He has a girlfriend named Liz, but it has gone back and forth in their relationship.
The manager of Dilbert and the other engineers, and the main annoyance of the strip; his real name is never mentioned. In earlier strips the Boss was depicted as a stereotypical late-middle-aged balding middle manager; it was not until later that he developed his signature "pointy hair". He is hopelessly incompetent at management. He does not understand technical issues but always tries to disguise this, usually by using buzzwords he also does not understand. The Boss treats his employees alternately with disdain or neglect; he uses them to his own ends regardless of the consequences to them. Adams himself wrote that "He's not sadistic, just uncaring." The Boss's level of intelligence varies from near-vegetative to perceptive and clever, depending on the strip's comic needs. His utter lack of ethics, however, is perfectly consistent. His brother is a demon named "Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light", and according to Adams, the pointy hair is intended to remind one of devil's horns.
One of the oldest engineers, Wally was originally a worker trying to get fired to get a severance package. He hates work and avoids it whenever he can. He often carries a cup of coffee, calmly sipping from it even in the midst of chaos or office-shaking revelations. Wally is extremely cynical. He is even more socially inept than Dilbert (though far less self-aware of the fact), and references to his lack of personal hygiene are not uncommon. Like the Pointy-Haired Boss, Wally is utterly lacking in ethics and will take advantage of any situation to maximize his personal gain while doing the least possible amount of honest work. Squat and balding, Wally is almost invariably portrayed wearing a short sleeved dress shirt and tie. Adams has stated that Wally was based on a Pacific Bell coworker of his who was interested in a generous employee buy-out program—for the company's worst employees. This had the effect of causing this man—whom Adams describes as "one of the more brilliant people I've met" -- to work hard at being incompetent, rude, and generally poor at his job to qualify for the buy-out program. Adams has said that this inspired the basic laziness and amorality of Wally's character. Despite these personality traits Wally is accepted as part of Dilbert, Alice and Asok's clique. Although his relationship with Alice is often antagonistic and Dilbert occasionally denies being his friend, their actions show at least a certain acceptance of him.
An engineer, who is often seen hanging out with Wally. He shows up in the older comics more, but he has made a big reappearance in the last few years. (He is referenced by his name a lot more in the older comics.) He is a friend of Dilbert and Wally, and it seems like Alice really likes him, as well. He has been accepted into Dilbert's group of engineers (Dilbert, Wally, Alice, and Asok). He has been fired and killed numerous times so it is likely that he is rehired and brought back to life in a similar way to the other main characters who die and come back. In addition to this, he is often promoted and given benefits over the other employees. Ted has a wife and kids who are referenced multiple times and seen on at least once occasion.
One of the more competent engineers. Alice has a huge, triangular hairstyle. She is often frustrated at her work, because she does not get proper recognition, which she believes is because she is female. She also has a quick, often violent temper, sometimes putting her "Fist of Death" to use, even with the Pointy Haired Boss. Alice originally depicted a series of female characters, like Ted the Generic guy, and she appeared for a time as the current Alice with a somewhat more normal hair style. Later she developed her signature triangular hair, similar to the boss. Alice is based on a woman that Scott Adams worked with named Anita, who is described as sharing Alice's "pink suit, fluffy hair, technical proficiency, coffee obsession and take-no-crap attitude."
Dilbert's pet dog (if such a subordinate appellation can be applied to him). Dogbert is a megalomaniac intellectual, planning to one day conquer the world. He once succeeded, but became bored of the ensuing peace and quit. Often seen in high ranking consultant jobs, he constantly abuses his power and fools the management of Dilbert's company, though considering the intelligence of the company's management in general and Dilbert's boss in particular, this is not very hard to do. Dogbert also enjoys pulling scams on unsuspecting, and usually dull customers to steal their money. However, despite Dogbert's cynical exterior, he has been known to pull his master out of some tight jams. Dogbert's nature as a pet was more emphasized during the earlier years of the strip; as the strip progressed, references to his acting like a dog became less common, although he still wags his tail when he perpetrates his scams. When an older Dilbert arrives while time-traveling from the future, he refers to Dogbert as "majesty", indicating that Dogbert will one day indeed rule the world...again, and make worshiping him retroactive so he could boss around time travelers.
A young intern. He works very hard but does not always get proper recognition. Asok is intensely intelligent but naive about corporate life; the shattering of his optimistic illusions are frequent comic fodder. Asok is Indian, and has graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The others, especially the Boss, often unwittingly trample on his cultural beliefs. If Asok mentions this, he is normally ignored. Asok's test scores (a perfect 1600 on the old SAT) and the fact his IQ is 240, show that he is the smartest member of the engineering team. There are a few jokes about him having psychic powers which he learned at the IIT. Yet despite his intelligence, ethics and mystical powers, Asok sometimes takes advice from Wally in the arts of laziness, and Dilbert in surviving the office.
The bitter secretary of the Pointy-Haired Boss, who hates her boss and all of her co-workers. Originally a minor character in the company where Dilbert, Alice, Asok, Ted, Loud Howard and Wally work, her character's popularity as the "secretary from hell" grew enough to the point where she was given entire storylines to herself in the strip. She once even had a secretary of her own, but she disappeared after a few strips.The Boss has made it clear that Carol will never be promoted past secretary even though she has an Master of Business Administration (MBA).
A rat formerly used as a laboratory test animal. A cheerful character, and something of a nitwit though he does make the occasional brilliant observation. He usually gets all the lowest jobs, but has been seen as a consultant before. He has made the pointy-haired boss fall under his consultant spell. Ratbert is originally disliked by Dilbert for being a rat, but is later accepted as a member of the family. He was not originally intended as a regular character, but because of his popularity with readers he was kept.
The company's evil feline Human Resources director. Although he was originally just supposed to be around for a few strips, the fans named him and demanded more of him. He derives pleasure from seeing employees worry about their jobs, and particularly enjoys tormenting Wally. Merely mentioning the term "layoffs" causes him to purr with delight. Unlike Dogbert, Catbert has no apparent owner, but retains all of the qualities of a cat, and frequently purrs or sheds or performs other acts of "catness", which he uses to torture the employees. He is particularly cooperative and friendly with the Pointy Haired Boss.
Dilberts Mother is a homely and intelligent woman. She used to think Dilbert worked at a railroad because he is an engineer. She's often selfish and openly uncaring towards her son; in the TV series she states that, although she loved him, she did not actually like him. She has nearly the same level of technical knowledge as Dilbert, although she has him do technical work for her. She is obsessed with Scrabble, and has been accused of cheating with "counterfeit vowels". (This is a reference to Scott Adams' own mother.) She also is on an unnamed department store's "bad customer list", because she returned over a thousand items to the store, one scarf in particular 17 times.
A minor demon who punishes people for small crimes by "darning them to heck" with his "pitch-spoon", a parody of Satan (the "Prince of Darkness"). Such crimes include using copier paper for the printer, stealing a chair from another cubicle, and finishing off the last coffee from the coffee maker without topping it up. As a minor demon Phil's punishments tend to be of an annoying rather than downright tormenting nature, such as being forced to sit at a secretary's desk and be teased by coworkers or being forced to sit among the accountants at lunchtime and listen to their inherently boring conversations. Phil is eventually revealed to be the Pointy-Haired Boss's brother. Adams is inconsistent with his depictions of Phil; he sometimes has horns and sometimes does not, and sometimes carries a pitchfork rather than a spoon. Adams has stated that the inconsistency is because he sometimes forgets that Phil is not supposed to have a cape or a pitchfork.
A vegetarian dinosaur who is the wedgie enforcer at the office. He was found after Dilbert calculated that dinosaurs could not be extinct, and they therefore must be in hiding. Bob was found hidden behind the couch. Bob has a wife (Dawn) and son (Rex), who also live in Dilbert's house, but they are seen far less frequently than he is, since most of his time is spent at Dilbert's office, where his wedgie duty is constantly needed while working with incompetent co-workers, salesmen, or clients. He has also revealed that being a dinosaur he is, of course, a COBOL programmer. Bob likes having naps and eating lots of carrots.
Dilbert's Waste collector/garbageman is a mysterious philosopher and scientist. He occasionally solves extremely complex problems for Dilbert and has several inventions, including a weather control device, a phaser, and an anti-stupidity gun. He also goes through Dilbert's trash on occasion, and once completed a robot that Dilbert had thrown out. In the TV show, it is revealed that he is the only garbageman for the whole city, and is able to collect for all houses through "shortcuts".
Tina was introduced as a technical writer in order to add more females to the cast. She feels that her skills are unappreciated. Initially, she was called "brittle" and would believe every statement was intended to be sexist in some way. Some readers criticized Adams for what they believed to be a stereotypical and negative portrayal of women. In response, Adams created the character Antina (the antidote to Tina), who was very smart and athletic.
People from a fictional Fourth World nation, used as a parody of outsourcing. Their culture is radically different from Western culture, and their patriarchy often annoys Alice. Their country is covered in waist-deep mud which they keep wet using expensive bottled water as revealed in one strip. The main vehicle of their national airline is essentially a giant slingshot. At one point, the French declared war on Elbonia because they tried to launch a French satellite with the town slingshot. Before Dilbert can intercede, the satellite flattened the French Embassy. At another time Dogbert lobbied Switzerland to "liberate" Elbonia's oil. Dogbert once became the king of Elbonia, but Dilbert convinced him to resign. Elbonia was first described as an Eastern European nation. Elbonia's traditional hats, long beards, male-centric culture and technological backwardness suggest it is modeled after a Third World Islamic society, such as Afghanistan; it is also similar to Post-Soviet States in its headwear and former communism. Scott Adams stated in Seven Years of Highly Defective People that Elbonia was created to allow for a foreign nation inoffensive to people outside the United States, and is based on the average American's perception of any country without cable TV.
Sadistic trolls from the accounting department whose bodies are 95% saliva. As Dogbert shows, their brains are so hard-wired that seeing someone wearing a baseball cap backwards causes their heads to explode, which he referred to as a "paradigm shifting without a clutch." The trolls' accounting offices resemble a cavernous Hell. They were originally ruled by a witch who turned Dilbert into an accounting troll but was destroyed when Dilbert, assigned to budget erasing, erased the accounting department's budget. The trolls are rarely given names, however occasionally a troll by the name Nordlaw is referenced. The first troll met in the comics was named Bradley. Their original name was Erv.
A senior system/network administrator or manager at Dilbert's company, Mordac the Preventer of Information Services strives to make the use of the company's computing resources as difficult and frustrating as possible. In most cases, the ridiculous or over-the-top restrictions he introduces are explained as in line with the company's IT policy (then again, he might be the one writing that policy), there have however been cases - for instance, when he made obscure changes to the network without testing just before allegedly leaving for a three-week vacation on a Russian submarine below the Arctic Circle - when his actions could only be explained by malice. His motives are unclear, although his demeanor suggests he simply takes pleasure using his management and technical powers to make the users of "his" systems suffer. In more recent strips he looks different. He appeared once with "Walter the Budget Guy" in the "Merger" episode animated series.
A relatively frequently-recurring character in the strip. Whenever anyone mentions in Topper's earshot any difficult task he or she accomplished, he barges into the conversation with a smug facial expression, exclaiming "that's nothing!". He then proceeds to top the other's statement with his own, obviously implausible or downright ridiculous, claim. He seems to be genuinely offended when the others express disbelief in his purported exploits. He allegedly cannot start a conversation, as he claims that it "ruins his system".
Another coworker who became a regular character in the TV series, despite appearing in just a few comic strips on 21 April 1995 and 17 March 2006 , and again by popular request on 11 October 2006. Loud Howard is incapable of speaking quietly, and in the TV series his overpowering voice often breaks anything and everything around him, including people's eardrums. It has also shattered glass and slammed people against the wall.
In the strips, his loud voice is represented by huge lettering and his comically huge mouth (when talking), which takes up most of the available panel space and is therefore difficult to sustain as a running joke. Howard as a recurring character is better-suited to the animated series, where his voice actor, Jim Wise, can speak as loudly as necessary.
An unseen character in the comic strip, although he does appear in the animated series, in which his face is hidden in a fashion similar to "Mammy Two Shoes" from "Tom and Jerry" or Wilson from "Home Improvement. He left Dilbert's mother during a trip to the mall in 1992 (1974 in the TV series), and lives at the buffet restaurant in the mall because he has not eaten all he can eat.
Dilbert's girlfriend from 1994 to 1996. He met her at a soccer game, where she rebounded a ball off his head to score a goal. Liz would constantly taunt Dilbert about their comparative levels of attractiveness and his obsession with technology, though Dilbert always took such comments in stride. Adams admitted in Seven Years of Highly Defective People that "Liz never really clicked with me", and eventually had her break up with Dilbert, after she started dating other men. She is Dilbert's longest relationship. Scott Adams clarified in a user interview that Dilbert is still a virgin and will remain so for a while.
Introduced in 1989, Bob and Dawn came into the strip after Dilbert figured out that not all dinosaurs could be extinct. Bob often gives wedgies to people. Rex was born shortly after the introduction of Bob and Dawn. Bob is close friends with Ratbert.