A disciple is a person who learns of a preacher everything that he needs to know and once they know it all they have to go and preach to the people what they have learnt. Any body can be a disciple, you don't have to be special or rich. .
Jesus twelve disciples where not the first john the Baptist had followers before Jesus. Disciple comes from the word Latin.
A disciple and apostle are two different kinds of people, an apostle goes out to teach people. Jesus later on turns his disciples in apostles.
The following people were dimples Simon and his brother Andrew. Jesus later changed Simons name to Peter. One day Simon and Andrew were catching fish, as normally they would do at Lake Galilee when Jesus came by and said, "come with me, and I will teach you how to catch men." At once they dropped their nets and followed Jesus. Simon and Andrew were the first disciples. Jesus walked a little more further and saw two more brothers James and John the sons of Zebedee also were catching fish but as soon as Jesus called them they left their father and followed Jesus. The other disciples are Philip, Bartomelemew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alpaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the patriot, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. All of theses disciples were everyday normal people, they had to work for a living, and they weren't rich or poor.
Levi was a bit different for he was a tax collector. Tax collectors in those times were hated. They were thought to be outcasts. They collected money for the Romans. Peters character is loving he was the one that was chosen most of the time to do something; he is not shy to say anything. Peter is the kind of person who does not want to hurt Jesus, but when Jesus is on trial and peter gets caught by the guards they ask him if he knows Jesus, he says no three times as Jesus said he would earlier. Peter also made lots of mistakes but Jesus forgave him and still let him be the leader of the group.