Katniss Everdeen is a fictional character and the protagonist of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Her name comes from a plant with edible tubers called Sagittaria, from Sagittarius the Archer, whose name means "He that throws arrows" in Latin. Katniss and her family come from District 12, a coal-mining district that is the poorest, least populated, and smallest district in the dystopian fictional autocratic nation of Panem, ruled by the Capitol. In the course of the first book, she competes in the Hunger Games after she is allowed to volunteer in place of her little sister, Primrose "Prim" Everdeen.