A biblical character often used as a name, or metaphorically referring to an outcast or pariah; famously the narrator of 'Moby Dick.'
From Hebrew 'Ishmael' meaning 'God will hear.' In the Bible, Ishmael is Abraham's firstborn son who is cast out, and his name became synonymous with exile and outsider status through centuries of religious literature.
Melville's genius was opening 'Moby Dick' with 'Call me Ishmael'—he chose a name literally meaning 'outcast' for a man starting a doomed voyage, foreshadowing the novel's tragic ending and making the narrator's identity inseparable from the book's themes of isolation.
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