Background

	A newborn Naruto with his mother Kushina.

Born to the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze and Kurama's second jinchūriki, Kushina Uzumaki, Naruto is the first of Asura's reincarnations to be born into the era of relative peace. Naruto was named after the protagonist of Jiraiya's first book, thereby making the Sannin his godfather.^[9] Prior to his birth, his parents and the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi feared that the stress of giving birth would compromise the seal which kept Kurama contained within Kushina. As a precaution, Kushina was taken to a top-secret location outside the village with Biwako Sarutobi and Taji as her midwives, guarded by Anbu and Minato to keep the seal in place. Through unknown means, an masked ninja who intended to take the fox for his own evil ends uncovered their plans. After killing the midwives and Anbu, the masked man took the newborn Naruto hostage as a means of seperating Minato from Kushina in order to release Kurama.^[10]

Minato and Kushina protecting Naruto from Kurama.

Minato quickly sprung into action, however, by the time he secured Naruto at a safer location, the masked man had succeeded in releasing Kurama and used it to devastate Konoha. Minato managed to save Kushina and left Naruto in her care before he went to protect the village.^[10] After having severed the masked ninja's control over the tailed beast, Minato realised the only way to stop Kurama was to seal it within Naruto, believing that his son would someday have need of the fox's power to defeat the masked ninja when he returned.^[11] However, Kurama's chakra was too immense for the seal to hold, and thus Minato was forced to sacrifice his soul in order to first weaken the fox by splitting its Yin and Yang chakra amongst himself and his son before succumbing to his wounds alongside Kushina after taking a fatal blow from the fox meant for their son. Suddenly orphaned, Naruto was left to grow up knowing nothing of his parents, receiving only his mother's last name as Hiruzen believed it was best that nobody knew that he was related to the Fourth Hokage.^[12]
Despite Minato's dying wish to see his son heralded as a hero, only the Third Hokage and a small number of the villagers could put their pain of loss aside and honour this request. The majority of Konoha, consumed with bitterness over the lives lost and destruction in the wake of Kurama's attack, resented Naruto for it, unable to separate the beast from the boy, and with some even seeing him as the fox itself. In the interest of protecting Naruto and in the hope that the younger generations would not emulate this position, Hiruzen passed a decree of secrecy that strictly prohibited the adults from divulging Naruto's status as a jinchūriki. This policy was not entirely effective, as many of the Naruto's peers followed their parent's example and shunned him.^[13] The social isolation would cause Naruto to develop a need to be acknowledged through mischief.

Naruto as a child.

Naruto later enrolled at the Academy. In the anime, one day, he was confronted by Sakura Haruno, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Chōji Akimichi. They accused him of making someone named Yota, who was a stranger to the village, disappear. Seeing them look at him with such distrust like the rest of the village, Naruto grew furious and ran away, so angry that people would like even an outsider over him. He then heard a young boy crying who strangely appeared to control the weather, making it rain with his tears. Naruto then realised this boy must be Yota. Immediately taking a liking to Naruto, the young boy asked him to teach him how to whistle like he saw Naruto do earlier. As Naruto began teaching him, the two soon became close friends. Later, Naruto and Yota began playing along with other the Konoha children that knew about Yota. One day, while playing a game of hiding, Yota insisted to hide with Naruto. When Naruto told him to hide somewhere else, Yota mistakenly thought Naruto didn't like him any more and ran away crying. His crying caused another rain-shower, which alerted the Anbu. As they took Yota captive, Naruto and the others tried to stop the Anbu, but to no success.^[14]
Determined to save his first ever friend, Naruto and the others staged a plan with Naruto acting as a diversion. Despite finding Yota, the Anbu easily foiled their plan. Naruto quickly joined his friends, refusing to let Yota be kept prisoner. Seeing how much Naruto cared for him and then got struck down by the Anbu, Yota summoned bolts of lightning to knock the Anbu out. Greatly weakened by the act, Naruto carried Yota out of the village with the others, determined to bring him to freedom. Upon reaching a river, unable to walk over it yet, they chose to swim. Their attempts proved futile and nearly drowned, only to be saved by Yota. Having overtaxed himself, Yota felt his life fading. Happy to have had friends, Yota didn't want them to suffer with this sad memory and erased all knowledge of him from their minds.^[15]

Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry during their childhood.

Naruto eventually became the student of Iruka Umino and met his class mate Sasuke Uchiha when the two were paired to spar against each other. Though excited at the chance to achieve popularity by beating Sasuke, Naruto was easily beaten. By looking at Sasuke's eyes, Naruto realised that they were filled with hatred, even though it wasn't directed at him. When Iruka told them to make the reconciliation seal, they both refused.^[16] Since then, Naruto came to see Sasuke as a rival and intended to beat him. When Naruto found out that Sasuke was also an orphan, he was secretly happy for not being the only one alone and wanted to talk to him, but couldn't because of his jealousy toward Sasuke's skills.^[17] Still, Naruto wished that someday, Sasuke would acknowledge him as an equal.^[18]
In the anime, when Naruto pulled a prank on a group of boys for not being invited to their "test of courage", he refused to return to the Academy after being glared at by Iruka with the same resentful stare everyone else gives him. Later, Naruto was tricked by the boys' leader, Hibachi, to get himself killed by enemy ninja in the hills. Learning of this, Iruka ended up saving Naruto from a trio of Takigakure kunoichi before Kakashi Hatake dispatched their pursuers. Soon after, Naruto began attending class again at the time that Iruka, who now acted as a surrogate brother to keep the boy in line, gave a lecture on the Will of Fire that inspired Naruto to become the next Hokage someday to achieve the acknowledgement he is striving for.^[19] Apart from Hiruzen and Iruka, Naruto also found a surrogate family with the owner of Ramen Ichiraku, Teuchi and his daughter Ayame to some extent.