Elphaba Thropp

(nickname Elphie) the green girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West

Elphaba made the list of Entertainment Weekly's List of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years, and deservedly so. She is at the center of both the immensely popular musical and novel Wicked. Elphaba is the intense, broody, smart heroine who often carries a sense of burden of her oddness.

In the musical we meet Elphaba for a moment as a baby and then as a teenager. She would like it if Ozians could accept her, setting aside their prejudice for her natural hue. Everything changes when she meets Galinda, Fiyero, and the Wizard. In her transition during "Defying Gravity," she expresses her new goal and role as someone striving to right the wrongs in Oz.

Wicked novelist Gregory Maguire invented the witch's name "Elphaba" based on the name for the author of The Wizard of Oz. L. F(rank) B(aum). L-F-B = Elphaba.

When composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz found out about Maguire's book and the Elphaba character, he decided to write a musical about her, and eventually Wicked came to be.

Source: http://www.musicalschwartz.com/wicked-characters.htm