Colfer has said that he based Artemis on his younger brother Donal, who as a child was "a mischievous mastermind who could get out of any trouble he got into".
Colfer planned for Artemis to have been called Archimedes but changed the name due to an interest in using a "classic Greek name" and trepidation that "people would think [the series] was about [the historical figure] Archimedes".