Sannin

The were the students of Hiruzen Sarutobi, members of his team: Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade. They possess exemplary ninja abilities. When they were young and relatively unknown during the Second Shinobi World War they fought against Hanzō, and for being able to survive his attacks he gave them the title of Konoha's Sannin as well as letting them live. After that, their names became famous throughout the world.

The Sannin are widely regarded for their great skill and power, each one has the level of being a Kage in their own right; each has been considered for the position of Hokage at different points in time, with Tsunade eventually obtaining the title upon the death of the Third Hokage. When Orochimaru defected from Konoha after being denied the position, the Sannin were disbanded, though they continued to be known by the title.

Renown

 * Tsunade, the granddaughter of the First Hokage and grandniece of the Second Hokage, possesses a terribly unlucky addiction to gambling. She became famous during the ninja wars as the world's greatest medical-nin, and she trained Shizune and Sakura Haruno in the art of medical ninjutsu. She later took on the title of Fifth Hokage.
 * Orochimaru, called the prodigy of his generation, defected from Konoha, joined Akatsuki, and founded Otogakure. He sought to gain immortality via means of kinjutsu in order to learn every jutsu in existence. He taught Anko Mitarashi and Sasuke Uchiha, the latter of whom absorbed him. He was later sealed away by Itachi Uchiha.
 * Jiraiya, an eccentric man, wandered the world, discovered and trained under the toads and wrote "The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi" and the Icha Icha series of novels. Later he became the teacher of Yahiko, Konan, Nagato, Minato Namikaze, and Naruto Uzumaki. He died while investigating Pain but in turn defeated and captured the Animal Path and left invaluable information that led to Pain's ultimate defeat.

Trivia

 * The Sannin are all masters of the Summoning Technique and summon using their left hand.
 * Each member of the Sannin has trained a Genin from Team 7; Orochimaru trained Sasuke, Tsunade trained Sakura, and Jiraiya trained Naruto.
 * Despite being three of the most powerful shinobi Konoha has ever produced, each of them departed from Konoha for different reasons. Orochimaru left to join Akatsuki and further develop his kinjutsu, Jiraiya went to gather information on Orochimaru, Akatsuki's movements, and find The Child of the Prophecy, and Tsunade lost all confidence in her healing ability and went into self-imposed exile.
 * The Sannin are named after the characters in the Japanese folktale Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari.
 * The world wide game "scissors, paper, stone" originated from China during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), invented by the warlords of that period. Except instead of paper, they used the open palm symbol to represent cloth, so it's "Scissors, Stone, Cloth". The game reached Japan in the early 1640s and one variation of the game was the "Slug, Snake, Frog" variation. In this variation, the Frog is afraid of the Snake, the Snake is afraid of the Slug, and the Slug is afraid of the Frog. This is influenced by the Sansukumi way of thinking where it keeps the three objects in a deadlock. The fact that the Sannin use these three animals as summons may be the author hinting that there is no stronger one among them, and that their strength is more or less equal.
 * The Sannin once had a friend named Hiruko who later became a missing-nin that appeared in Naruto Shippūden 3: Inheritors of the Will of Fire.