Name of Cain

"C-a-i-n, like in The Bible, but I didn't kill anybody."

— Herman Cain's typical self-introduction

Ever since that guy in The Bible killed his brother, characters named Cain, Caine, Kane, Kayne, or variants, have had a bad reputation. They tend to be villains. Since Evil Is Cool, though, it was only a matter of time before the name became acceptable fodder for the odd antihero, as well. Either way, they tend to be morally sketchy, and probably badass.

For when the character is actually Cain himself, see Cain and Biblical Bad Guy. For when the character is descended from him, see The Descendants of Cain.

A specific form of Names to Run Away from Really Fast, and, of course, a Meaningful Name. Also see Cain and Cain and Abel, for obvious reasons. Sister Trope to Villain Baal. Compare One-Mario Limit.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Trinity Blood: Cain Knightlord is the Big Bad of the story, being leader of the terrorist organization Rosencreutz Orden and the older brother for Abel Nightroad, Seth Nightlord and Lilith Sahl (the latter killed by Cain). Although the series is based in a Steampunk future version of the Dark Age, the many biblical references of the main characters, as well all of them being Crusnik (lab-created vampires that feed from other vampires), makes this Cain a big reference to the original one as well to Caine, the first vampire from Vampire: The Masquerade.
• Lost Universe: Kane Blueriver, a space adventurer with his own ship who's also a descendant of Lina Inverse thousand of years in the future. Inverted here, since he's the Hero Protagonist of the series and an All-Loving Hero.
• Bakuten Shoot Beyblade : Kane is played straight in the manga and played with in the anime. In the manga, he's an evil genius who's willing to play dirty to defeat Takao, although Defeat Means Friendship kicks in after he fails to secure victory. In the anime, he's sociable and hits it off with Takao right away. Then he becomes Brainwashed and Crazy and is turned into a severely unhinged variant of his manga self. He gets better.
• Count Cain: While Cain is actually the protagonist, he was given the name because his father believes him to be cursed. He has a troubled past, is known as a ladies' man, collects poisons for a hobby, and has the unlucky tendency of having the people around him die often, and in gruesome ways. However on his death, Alexis reveals that he named his son "Cain" because even though the biblical Cain committed a terrible sin, God still forgave and protected him, and eventually allowed him to settle down.
• Golden Cain: The title refers to the main character's enigmatic love interest who's trouble, to say the least.
• Tekkaman Blade: Teknoman, the US adaptation, renames Evil Twin Shinya Aiba into Cain Carter... possibly to make up for renaming his tekkaman form to Teknoman Saber instead of the extremely descriptive "Tekkaman Evil". The name Cain actually makes sense here, though: Based on the flashbacks, it seems that the twins' incredibly screwed up parents had been intentionally goading their sibling rivalry into full blown homicidal malice for pretty much their entire childhood, before anyone had ever heard of a tekkaman.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Sergeant Kain Fuery. Subverted in that he's a rather shy and somewhat geeky communications officer. Word of God says that the author picked most of the first names for more minor characters at random from a dictionary of European names. It's actually a misromanization of Huey, after the iconic helicopter, as part of the military characters' Theme Naming, all of them being christened after military aircraft. Huey Kane does sound a bit more fitting for the character.
• Dawn of the Arcana: Prince Cain. He is Caesar's older half-brother and the first-in-line to the Belquat throne. However, he holds a strong hatred for Caesar as Caesar's mother was put as queen while Cain's mother was dethroned, Caesar has black hair (hair color is taken as Serious Business with black hair being the most favorable while the rest of the hair colors are seen as "common"), and Cain's fiancee Louise has feelings for Caesar.
• GaoGaiGar: A combined subversion and straight use of the trope. The Cain of this series is Leader of an alien civilization destroyed by the Zonder. Cain also developed the G-Stone technology and sent Galeon to Earth with his son, Latio (AKA Mamoru). In short, a strong candidate for the show's Big Good. However, in FINAL, A replicant of Cain, named Pei La Cain, acts as one of the villainous 11 Sol Masters. Notably, his only two contributions to FINAL's plot are a brief appearance that costs Guy dearly in his first duel with Palparepa, and serving as Mamoru's opponent in the final battle.
• Fairy Tail has two such characters, both villains. The first is Kain Hikaru, a member of the dark guild Grimoire Heart that believes the Big Bad to be the Dark Messiah; his name is technically Japanese-based and rhymes with the English word "pine", but he has a connection to a later villain not-so-subtly named "Able". The second, Zash Caine, is The Heavy of the movie Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry.
• Banana Fish features Cain Blood, an African American in charge of a New York gang. He's a neutral third-party, perhaps somewhat rarer for characters with this name.
• To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts: Cain Madhouse, the Big Bad, is an Ax-Crazy megalomaniac who believes it is the right of the Incarnates to rule the world with him in charge.
• In the first Tenchi Universe movie, Tenchi Muyo in Love, the villain of the movie is named KAIN, a strange amorphous creature that took the combined might of the Galaxy Police and the Royal Juraian Family to contain. When he broke out, we travels back in time to kill the weak link in the royal bloodline - Tenchi's mother, Achika.

Comic Books

• Buck Rogers: One of the recurring enemies is one Killer Kane. Originally simply a Crazy Jealous Guy soldier who became Buck's enemy after his girlfriend Wilma Deering left him for Buck, he was later upgraded into a "super-racketeer" who rules the Earth of 2440 as its supreme dictator.
• The DCU:
  • Batman: Son of the Demon: Qinlan is a former member of the League of Assassins whose parents were killed during the Hiroshima bombing. Blaming Ra's al Ghul for his parents' deaths, Qinlan became obsessed with death and changed his name to Qayin, after a variation of the name Cain.
  • Batgirl Vol. 2: Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl, is the daughter of an assassin (David Cain) and the world's greatest martial artist (Sandra Woosan, a.k.a. Lady Shiva). Cain raised her to kill practically from birth, but she escaped and became a superhero. Her name is probably a Mythology Gag for the first Bat-Girl.
  • Batwoman:
    • Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman, and her niece Bette Kane, Bat-Girl. Unambiguously heroic, but usually treated as pests or second-raters by Batman, whose mother's maiden name also happened to be Kane. Probably named after Batman creator Bob Kane, who appears not to have been a real-life example of this trope. Maybe.
    • The Post-Crisis Batwoman, Katherine "Kate" Kane, has been drawn into the inner workings of the Religion of Crime due to her presence at the heart of their prophecies regarding the "twice-named Daughter of Cain". As a "twice-named" (referring to her twin sister, who she thought was lost as a child) and the daughter of a "Kane," the religion has become somewhat preoccupied with her sacrifice.
  • Final Crisis: Revelations establishes that much of the concept of Cain was actually based on the immortal supervillain Vandal Savage, who used Cain as one of his many aliases.
  • House of Mystery: Cain is the sinister trickster host; his brother Abel hosts its sister series, House of Secrets. While originally the names weren't strictly meant to say that they're the Cain and Abel, their appearances as supporting characters in The Sandman (1989) established that they're really a pair of Starfish Aliens from billions of years ago who were the first sentient lifeforms in the universe to intentionally kill another of its own kind and its victim. The first act of murder was so monumental that they became archetypes living on for all of history in the collective unconscious of all life, perceived by each new observer as one of their own and inspiring stories such as the Bible story of Cain and Abel. It's interesting to note that, while Eve is also a character in the comics, she does not consider herself to be related to them and denies it when Cain calls her "Mother". Cain responds that she is "everyone's mother", and leaves it at that.
  • Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Kane Milohai is a Hawaiian god and ally of Wonder Woman's. He helps her get back into Olympus, and is rewarded for his efforts by having his heart ripped out by Zeus.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Captain America: One of the Falcon's early enemies is a Daryl Kane, a low-level crimelord who creatively began calling himself "Nemesis" after clashing with Sam.
  • Ghost Rider: Vincent Cain aka Cain the Gris-Gris Man. Despite his name, he's not actually a Gris-Gris Man or even a man at all, but rather a murderous avatar of vengeance created by the elderly and bitter voodoo practitioner Ruby Avedon.
  • Spider-Man: Kaine from The Clone Saga. Being an unstable, overpowered psycho clone who simultaneously loves and hates Peter Parker (and Ben Reilly) is pretty fitting here. Anyone he killed had an ugly scar on his face called "The Mark of Kaine," and he could even put this mark on someone without killing him if he wanted to make a serious point. Basically, as a clone of Spidey, he uses the power that lets him stick to walls... on your face. Ow. Nowadays, as the new Scarlet Spider, he's calmed down considerably, but he's still quite the threat, especially being bonded to The Other.
  • X-Force: Garrison Kane was originally a subversion, as despite his Rage Against the Mentor motivation he was still a hero, and frankly Cable kind of deserved it for leaving Kane to die. Later after his original creators left he played his name very straight, falling prey to Cybernetics Eat Your Soul and becoming the merciless enforcer for the mutant concentration camp Neverland.
  • X-Men has Cain Marko, THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH! Even more appropriate given he's Xavier's older, stronger, bullying stepbrother, jealous of his brother's intelligence and family favor. If you're still not convinced, flip his names around.
• Monsters Unleashed: Solomon Kane is a Hunter of Monsters who has sworn to kill the French bandit Le Loup.
• The Ten-Seconders: Kane is a Badass Normal who has taken the fight to the "Gods" and killed several of them.
• Werewolf by Night: Joshua Kane, hunter of big game and werewolves in issue 4 and his unscrupulous businessman brother, Luther Kane.

Fan Works

• Reborn Trilogy: Boba Fett takes on the title of Darth Kain when he joins forces with Palpatine and becomes a Sith Lord. He ends up renouncing it and becoming Boba Fett again just before his Heel–Face Door-Slam.

Films — Animation

• Tenchi Muyo!: The villain of the first movie is named Kain (though it's pronounced like "kine" in accordance with Japanese phonetics).

Films — Live-Action

• Citizen Kane's Charles Foster Kane is definitely an antihero.
• RoboCop 2: the drug lord (torturer, murderer) Cain.
• Raising Cain: One of John Lithgow's split personalities is a serial killer named Cain.
• Doomsday has the Mad Scientist Marcus Kane, and his Ax-Crazy son Sol... whose full name is presumably Solomon Kane.
• In Southland Tales, Boxer Santaros's cheesy screenplay centers around a badass character named Jericho Cain (who he hopes to be able to play himself).
• End of Days' lead, Jericho Cain, played by Schwarzenegger. A total antihero, and implied to be the second-coming of Christ (J.C., get it?).
• Gabriel Caine in Diggstown, while a con man, is basically good and is an unambiguous hero of the story.
• Sutter Cane, from In the Mouth of Madness, is an horror writer whose latest novel would have disturbing consequences. Seems to be more an allusion to Stephen King than to Abel And Cain, though.
• Alien: Kane was the crewmember who "gives birth" to the terrifying xenomorph. May be averted as the crewmember Kane is not a bad guy, just a terribly unlucky guy who found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Subverted in Lifeforce (1985). Special Air Service Colonel Colin Caine stays completely heroic.
• In Hollow Man, Dr. Sebastian Caine becomes invisible, and gradually goes mad with the power it gives him.
• In the The Haunting (1999) spoof in Scary Movie 2, the villainous ghost was called Hugh Kane. The original character in Haunting was called Hugh Crain, technically getting just around this trope even though it's still evoking the phonetic symbology of the trope.
• Early drafts of the script for what became A New Hope had Luke Skywalker called Annakin Starkiller, the son of a well-known warrior named Kane.
• The vicious Asiatic warrior in Highlander III: The Sorcerer who kills and rapes for fun is named Kane.
• I Come in Peace: Jack Caine, who is a Cowboy Cop Anti-Hero who frequently flouts protocol.
• In the Name of the King 3: Last Mission: the Anti-Hero is Hazen Kaine, a Hitman with a Heart.
• Soldier: A new genetically engineered Super-Soldier who becomes Todd's arch-enemy is named Cain.
• Menace II Society: The main character is a hood guy named Caine. While he's not as bad as his Ax-Crazy friend O-Dog, he still can't escape the culture of violence.
• Holocaust 2000: Subverted by Robert Caine, who merely unknowingly fathered The Antichrist, but played straight by his diabolical son Angel Caine.
• Fatal Instinct: Seriously, when you run into a Femme Fatale named "Lola Cain", don't be surprised that she's morally bankrupt.
• The protagonist of More Dead Than Alive is named Cain. Just Cain. A gunslinger released from prison after 18 years, Cain is trying to go straight but finding it hard as people cannot see him as anything more than a brutal killer. Not helped by people continually referring to him by his old nickname: "Killer" Cain.
• Swelter has Kane, the most amoral of the Caper Crew and the (half-)brother to the crew's Mastermind. Interestingly, while Kane is still the evil one (relatively), in this case, it's him who is killed by his brother, not the other way around.
• Zachariah has Job Cain, one of the most dangerous criminals in the West.

Literature

• In Pat Conroy's novel The Lords of Discipline there is an antagonistic character named Cain Gilbreath. Lampshaded mercilessly by the main character.
• The Jeffrey Archer book Kane and Abel, although Abel wasn't portrayed as the "good" one.
• Solomon Kane is a somber Puritan swordsman Walking the Earth with the only goal of vanquishing whatever evil he encounters.
• Karl Edward Wagner's Kane Series, who is in fact a Conan-esque (that's the description for those who have never read the Kane books... he's actually not much like Conan at all) version of the Biblical Cain, with stories that take place in a dangerous and dark prehistory. Kane himself was cursed with immortality by an insane elder god after having strangled his brother, Abel. From the evidence given in the stories, it's pretty clear that the insane elder god is meant to be Jahweh, i.e., God.
• From The Bourne Series, Jason Bourne's codename in the books is Cain, and after Bourne's brother is brutally killed and Bourne is framed, one of the characters wonders if the name hadn't been prophetic. Also, in the movies, an alias of his is John Michael Kane.
• Caine of Garthan Hold (aka Hari Khapur Michaelson), of Matthew Stover's The Acts of Caine, who definitely has the morally ambiguous badass anti-hero thing down pat.
• Downplayed with Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!, a Fake Ultimate Hero, has not one but two names with unfortunate Biblical implications. His surname of "Cain" gives away the fact that he not quite squeaky clean — after all, he serves a fascistic organization.
• The Evil Twin, Caine, of Michael Grant's Gone.
• The Ellery Queen novel "The King is Dead" features rich munitions maker King Bendigo, his wimpy brother Abel, and his drunk brother Judah. King Bendigo's real first name is Cain. He's the Big Bad even if he is not the murderer but the victim.
• The Caine in The Caine Mutiny. Tom Keefer even specifically says he feels the ship, a WWI relic held together by rust and grime, is as detestable as its Biblical namesake.
• Valkyrie Cain in Skulduggery Pleasant is one of the good guys, but she specifically picked her name based on the expression 'raising Cain' (making trouble).
  • She goes on to fulfill her name when she is forced to kill her sister in the final book to save the world, although she does immediately resurrect her.
• Subverted by Robin Kane, who is a teen girl detective, sort of like Nancy Drew.
• The name of Marc DuQuesne, the Evil Genius villain of the Skylark Series, is a relatively subtle pun on "mark of Cain" since it requires the reader to know that the surname is pronounced "du-CAIN".
• Caine, one of princes of Amber. It's typical for Amber siblings to plot against one another, form strategic alliances and break them but Caine is the only one that actually gets to kill his brother, or more precisely, half-brother Brand.
• The Acts of Caine: Caine is an assassin for hire in a fantasy world. The fantasy world is real, but Caine is not a real person: he's portrayed by American "actor" Hari Michaelson, whose Studio sends him to Overworld to have adventures they can portray in VR sims.

Live-Action TV

• Erica Kane from All My Children is generally at worst, a vindictive matriarch you don't want to mess with.
• Commander Cain in Battlestar Galactica (1978) is a Living Legend among the Battlestar fleet commanders and was explicitly based on General George Patton. As well, in comparison to his remake counterpart, he is a much nicer person (not to mention a man).
• Admiral Helena Cain in Battlestar Galactica (2003), commander of the Battlestar Pegasus. She quickly turns out to be a fanatical General Ripper so consumed with the war against the Cylons that she commits atrocities against civilian fleets.
• Blake's 7. In "Breakdown", the protagonists seek the help of a Dr Kayn to cure Gan, but he's revealed to be an egotist and supporter of the Federation who has no interest in curing his patient, and is only delaying them until a Federation patrol arrives. Kayn's actions cause the deaths of everyone on the space station, including himself, when it's struck by a Misguided Missile from a Federation cruiser.
• Gib Cain the werewolf hunter in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who doesn't care his victims are human 25 days out of the month.
• Paraplegic French cop Frédéric Caïn from Caïn is not a bad guy, but he's quite a snarky jerk.
• Horatio... Caine of CSI: Miami. He is the closest the franchise gets to a true "super cop", with his capacity for pulling off the Stealth Hi/Bye on crooks.
• Doctor Who:
  • The villain of "Dragonfire".
  • "The Waters of Mars": Margaret "Maggie" Cain is one of the first crewmembers to be infected by the Flood, and appears to act as the ringleader as well.
• Evil, evil Cain Dingle from Emmerdale.
• When Stavros Cassadine came back to life on General Hospital, he sometimes used the alias Lucien Caine, and even fantasized about calling his hated brother Stefan's attention to the Cain/Abel echoes.
• Hunter: Captain Cain, Rick Hunter's exasperated superior early in season 1. While not an overt antagonist as he's just doing his job trying to rein in Hunter's maverick tendencies, he's a pretty venal example of the "obstructive chief" since he's far more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an orderly department than protecting his officers.
• In the short-lived TV series Kidnapped, Cain is the name of the family of the kidnapped boy, who are embroiled in all sorts of conspiracies and nastiness.
• An interesting example here is Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu (1972) — generally a good guy, but not wholly unlike his biblical namesake; he killed a man and had to leave his homeland because of it.
• The Mandalorian: It's likely no coincidence that when Elia Kane's name's revealed, her surname's based on that of the original Biblical Bad Guy Cain, since she turns out to be a sadistic Fake Defector from Gideon's Imperial Remnant who's still doing evil.
• Romper Stomper: Zoe, who's a Christian, notes Kane's name, and says it's "wicked" (though she finds him appealing). Kane is a Neo-Nazi thug himself.
• Wyatt Cain from the Sci Fi Channel's Tin Man, and the Tin Man in question. All around Badass Normal, ex cop and ready for vengeance. But only against the people who destroyed his life and killed his wife and son (he believes).
• Duncan Kane (and his morally dubious dad Jake Kane) from Veronica Mars.

Music

• The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" begins with the line "Virgil Cain is my name" and includes a line reference to raising a Cain back up.
• Completely averted by Paul Simon who used the pseudonym "Paul Kane" for some of his early compositions. At the time he was more concerned about the anti-Semitism he might experience from using his Jewish surname than the negative Biblical undertones of his pseudonym.
• Neo Progressive Rock band Citizen Cain. Their lyrics exhibit an appropriately dark view of human nature.
• Ethel Cain, the Stage Name of Southern Gothic indie singer-songwriter Hayden Anhedönia, invokes this. Fittingly, Christianity is a recurring theme in her music, especially in her album Preacher's Daughter.

Pro Wrestling

• Kane of WWE. His backstory is that the seven foot tall monster was burned as a child and raised by "manager" Paul Bearer. He is also brother to The Undertaker; although both are dark and evil characters, the biblical brother theme is still present. And then there's the whole "sadistic pyromaniac" aspect of his character, which makes him seem even more demonic. He has since suffered some character decay, according to some.
• The Undertaker actually debuted as "Cain the Undertaker", although he dropped the Cain part after a few months.
• Lodi's real name is Brad Cain and, prior to his WCW arrival in 1997, had competed in the Carolinas independent scene as Brad Kane.

Roleplay

• Kain, evil Dragonstorm leader from Darwin's Soldiers.

Tabletop Games

• In Vampire: The Masquerade, the biblical Cain (here spelled Caine) was the very first vampire.
• Warhammer 40,000 plays this one straight with Khaela Mensha Khaine, the Eldar god of war. In Warhammer, he's the God of Murder.
  • Also subverted with Commissar Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!), the hero of the eponymous book series. He's a self-professed coward who gets by with a lot of luck, however, he's still plenty badass and has taken on some of the worst the galaxy has thrown at him and come out on top on most occasions.
  • Iskandar Khayon, chaos sorcerer of the Black Legion (pronounced "Sekhandur Caine"), also evokes this, as his attempted coup against Ahzek Ahriman gave the mage a dark reputation, even among fellow heretics.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!; the Japanese name for Number 13: Embodiment of Crime is Cain's Devil; it is a Dark Fiend, and has a Number that is traditionally bad. The reference gains additional meaning in the issue of the manga where it debuts; it was summoned by Kaito Tenjo after he reduced Shark's Life Points to below half - in short, Kaito played the role of Cain in the duel by acting as the aggressor against Shark.

Theatre

• Sera Myu has Cain the Dark who is the biblical Cain as a spirit possessing Sailor Astarte and later a homunculus made for him.

Theme Parks

• Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights:
  • Dr. Albert Caine AKA the Caretaker is a Mad Doctor who performed gruesome medical experiments on subjects both live and dead to study the soul and the limits of the human mind. His present-day speciality is "living, breathing autopsies", which is about as pleasant for the victim as it sounds.
  • There's also his daughter Cindy Caine, whose third backstory states that she burned down the orphanage where she lived after abuse from the other children drove her over the edge — and that was before the good doctor adopted her.

Video Games

• Admiral Edmund Kane from Backstab is the game's Big Bad, who betrayed his subordinate - the player protagonist Henry Blake - and arranged for a town under his governance to be invaded by the Spanish. Before using his connection to secure a promotion and rule over the seas as a tyrant.
• John "Dutch" Caine from Blow Out is a badass Space Marine and One-Man Army, as well as a Blood Knight who enjoys shooting enemies a little too much. He is one of the good guys, however.
• Kane from the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series games, the Dark Messiah of the Brotherhood of Nod, is heavily implied to be the biblical Cain - he's certainly been around long enough, and in Command & Conquer: Renegade the player can find Abel's tomb beneath the Temple of Nod in Cairo.
• The Legacy of Kain series stars a vampire named Kain, who later goes on to conquer the world, lead it into ruin, execute plan after plan to save it... Kain's not a nice guy, but he doesn't start off evil and it's indicated that he doesn't end the series all that evil either. Still not nice, but...
• Lucas Kane, protagonist of Fahrenheit, spends most of the game on the run from the cops after killing a man. Admittedly, he was possessed at the time, but still.
• The Kain family from Pathologic. Though they aren't evil(there are no exact villains in the game), they are still creepy and mysterious - the recently deceased patriarch of the family was a seemingly immortal man, his sister-in-law was resident The Caligula, and her daughter is obsessed and probably in love with one of the protagonists.
• Mega Man X series' Dr. Cain isn't a bad guy, but his attempts to copy Dr. Light's research ended in disaster.
• Kain of Final Fantasy IV, complete with feeling jealous and overshadowed by his brother-figure Cecil. Golbez takes advantage of this. Ironically, Golbez turns out to be Cecil's actual brother. And to have also been brainwash by the true Big Bad.
• Cain from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light subverts this, acting as one of Marth's earliest and most staunch allies. And to add to the irony, it's Abel who betrays his kingdom in the sequel.
• General Thaddeus Kaine of Zork Nemesis, a villain happy to use Cold-Blooded Torture and who treats his son horribly.
• In the NES version of Strider, one of the supporting characters is named Strider Kain. Strider Hiryu is sent to kill him because he's fallen into enemy hands (Striders caught by the enemy are considered expendable since their identities are now known), but the situation becomes more complicated than it seems.
• The Kane family of the Twisted Metal series is one Big, Screwed-Up Family. "Needles" Kane is a Monster Clown/Serial Killer, Charlie Kane is a reanimated corpse being controlled by his son, Marcus Kane is insane, and it's implied the entire series takes place in his head.
• Adam "Kane" Marcus from Kane & Lynch fits, as although he is a protagonist, he is a ruthless mercenary who's mostly only heroic because his enemies are worse.
• Subverted in the Diablo series. Deckard Cain is a Last of His Kind scholarly good guy who will identify your magical items for you.
• Shining Force: The evil knight Kane is one of Runefaust's strongest enforcers. Fittingly, he's also the brother of the protagonist.
• Billy Kane from Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters games, though in this case his surname is pronounced "Khan". A vicious fighter and henchman of Geese Howard who also has a cute little sister called Lilly Kane, literally the "Abel" of his big brother, but Billy protects her instead of wanting to kill her.
• Kain R. Heinlein from Fatal Fury. Best friend to Abel "Grant" Cameron. You see where this is going right?
• Not a character example, but the M-920 Cain is the most powerful weapon in Mass Effect 2. One shot will kill almost any enemy in the game, and the final boss can only take two hits. It has two drawbacks however: a long charge up time and a blast radius large enough to easily kill the player.
• In Ultima VII, an alchemist named Caine appears as a ghost on the now-dead island of Skara Brae. He blames himself for this, as he attempted to make a substance that could kill the lich Horance who was taking over the island, but botched the mixing process which resulted in a colossal fire that destroyed the island. Subverted in that it actually wasn't his fault, but he inadvertently started Batlin on his path to darkness.
• Cain in Galerians is a textbook example of this, being a jealous, villainous, and murderous brother.
• Cutter Cain, who kills Seers, typically with a knife, in City of Heroes: Going Rogue; Subverted in that his actual name is Doctor Steffard; he's actually a Resistance Warden trying to help them by removing cybernetic implants binding them to mindless slavery; but the science is so experimental it's not always successful, and at least one was killed by a remote kill-signal in the implants after he had released her.
• A character named Caim (a Gaelic spelling of Cain) is the main character of Drakengard. His moral compass can be described charitably as "Anti Heroic" — in fact, the only thing that keeps him from being a Villain Protagonist is that the target of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge happens to plan to Take Over the World (and for the record, Caim would still be butchering them all even if their goal happened to be 'build the world's happiest puppy orphanage'). By the second game he's turned into an antagonistic Rogue Protagonist, who seeks to free his pact partner from the Knights even if it means she'll destroy the world when freed. Though unlike other examples on this page, Caim is an unintentional example only due to the aforementioned fact Caim is a spelling of Cain in Gaelic: Most of the main cast of characters in Drakengard are named after a demon from the Ars Goetia, in his case, Duke Camio/Caym/Caim.
• The Driver series has the mob boss Solomon Caine.
• Though it's really a Disguise/Split personality, there's a Cain in The Binding of Isaac. He wears an eyepatch and his starting skills make him a 'rogue' kind of characters. Abel makes an appearance as an item/familiar. Repentance later added Tainted Cain, a variation that has the eyepatch eye clawed and is unable to pick up items, causing them to burst into pickups. He instead needs to use a special sack to collect said pickups and turn them into items.
• The former FBI director trying to kill Agent 47 in Hitman: Blood Money is named Alexander Leland Cayne.
• Kayn is a playable champion in League of Legends designed as an edgy assassin wielding a demonic scythe.
• The Rival in Battle Arena Toshinden is named Kayin. He comes with a boatload of symbolism about his name: his backstory, occupation and stages all harken back to the Biblical figure.
• Xenogears has an Emperor Cain. And an Abel, no less!^note Although he doesn't actually succeed in killing Abel, just his girlfriend/adoptive mother who protected him via Heroic Sacrifice. Yeah. The game's filled with Biblical references, after all.
• Cain Fact from Ys, who also goes by "Demon King Darm". He is the main villain of Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter and Ys Origin and is responsible for most of the disasters that befell in the world.

Visual Novels

• Hatoful Boyfriend has a fantasy AU in which Yuuya's name is Cain Reprobus. The fantasy AU reflects the normal canon in many ways - Cain's a paladin, a healer-fighter and Knight in Shining Armor much beloved by his people, but his name hints about how Yuuya killed one brother to save another and regrets it, and tries to atone through general heroism.
• From Dies Irae there is Tubal Cain, a massive zombie like creature that swings around a mock-up of the holy lance. Though he is named after the biblical man said to have been the first blacksmith instead of the usual Cain.

Webcomics

• Despite having a brother called Abel, nothing in Beyond the End suggests that Cain is the biblical Cain. Him and his brother are just a couple of angels with some unfortunate names and end up following through on their namesake.
• Gabriel Caine from EVIL.
• The two main characters of Starfighter are code-named Cain and Abel. Cain is a cocky, dark, Fetishized Abuser and former criminal who's involved in some kind of subterfuge with the higherups. Despite being a major Jerkass and somewhat abusive, he comes across as cool, competent, and sexy.

Web Animation

• The Amazing Digital Circus: The rogue AI running the titular Circus who's putting human souls through torment is named Caine, though he's affable and oblivious rather than straight evil.

Web Original

• SCP Foundation: What SCP-073 calls himself. Ironically he's a pleasant Walking Wasteland while SCP-076-2, "Able," is an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight. Professor Crow's first name is also Kain.
• Grandmaster of Theft focuses around protagonist Cassidy Cain, an Anti-Hero Classy Cat-Burglar. Furthermore, she's a member of the Cain Dynasty and family founded CAINternational.

Web Videos

• In Starpocalypse, Niac fits this, being a complete prick who endangers the human race.

Western Animation

• In the Comic Book Within a Show Radioactive Man, Radioactive Man's Secret Identity is Claude Kane, probably in parody of this trope. He's depicted as pretty much an Idiot Hero.
• Episode 11 of Sym-Bionic Titan has Lance and Illana escaping a mysterious prison with a fellow prisoner named Cain. He's actually a good guy...until he turns out to be The Dragon of the bad guys.
• Abraham Kane of Motorcity, the show's Affably Evil Big Bad obsessed with crushing what little population of Detroit remains outside of his rule. He even has a fitting voice, being played by Mark Hamill.
• Hunter Cain of Generator Rex, who has no real goal except killing EVOs.
• In Ben 10, one episode had the Villian Of The Week named Kane North trying to kill his brother Abel. Makes you wonder what their parents were thinking when they named their kids.
• Tangled: The Series has Lady Caine, a recurring villain who first appears in the pilot movie, Tangled: Before Ever After.

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