Daniel "Danny" Fenton, also known as Danny Phantom, is the titular main protagonist of the series. He is initially shown as an average, self-conscious, introverted, kindhearted, and sensitive 14-year-old boy who is desperate to fit in with his peers and be accepted, despite his parents' eccentricities. Danny thinks highly of his older sister Jazz, despite finding it annoying when she gets involved in his social life, and is in many ways as over-protective of her as she is of him. After an accident in his parents' ghost lab, Danny becomes a human/ghost hybrid, also called a half-ghost or halfa, and obtains a variety of ghostly abilities. A battle with the Lunch Lady Ghost places the unsure Danny on the path to becoming a superhero. Despite his flaws, he is good-hearted and loyal to his friends and family. He eventually grows, gaining great confidence in himself and maturity, and begins concentrating more on his heroic duties.
Danny possesses the powers of flight, intangibility, invisibility, sensing other spirits, and possession, as well as ghost rays. The ghost rays consist of laser-like "ectoplasm" which are emitted from his body; primarily his hands and fingertips. Over the course of the show, he gains various other powers such as duplication, forcefield creation, telekinesis, power absorption, and cryokinesis. In the two-part special "The Ultimate Enemy", Danny gains a power known as the "Ghostly Wail", which emits destructive waves of ecto-energy from his mouth. However, Danny obtained the Ghostly Wail 10 years too early, resulting in him being unprepared for its power. The Wail drains him of all his strength and reverts him to human form.