The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One) is the first book in a series of heroic fantasy novels called The Kingkiller Chronicle. It was published in 2007 by DAW Books with two possible hardcovers. A new cover was released in subsequent reprints, depicting a cloaked figure under a dark sky in a windy field. Rothfuss spent 7 years writing The Name of the Wind, drawing on his interests and hobbies, and the education he pursued over 9 years in college. A short storey excerpted from the novel The Wise Man's Fear, the second volume of The Kingkiller Chronicle "The Road to Levinshire", won the Writers of the Future contest in 2002, leading to the book's publication. The sequel, The Wise Man's Fear, was released on March 1, 2011 by DAW Books.

The setting of the book takes place in two time periods, the first in present and the other covering years of the past, chronicling Kvothe's youth as he tells his life storey to a Chronicler who asks for the non-exaggerated version of his life.