How do I interpret the results of the `ls -l` command?

Question

I want to learn about the meaning of values for example first line;

drwxr-xr-x 2 ataka root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 ataka

is ataka here the owner of directory ?

kioutsovkm@orkide:/users/lnxsrv2/ee$ ls
ataka  aydinoglu  izgordu  kioutsovkm  kocaogluo
kioutsovkm@orkide:/users/lnxsrv2/ee$ ls -l
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 ataka     root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 ataka
drwxr-xr-x 2 aydinoglu root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 aydinoglu
drwxr-xr-x 3 izgordu   root 4096 2009-09-29 11:59 izgordu
drwxr-xr-x 2 root      root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 kioutsovkm
drwxr-xr-x 4 kocaogluo root 4096 2010-06-10 03:41 kocaogluo
kioutsovkm@orkide:/users/lnxsrv2/ee$

Answer 1

Is ataka here the owner of directory?

Well, yes (third column), but it also happens to be the name of the directory (last column).

      +-permissions that apply to the owner
      |
      |     +-permissions that apply to all other users
      |     |
      |     |  +-number of hard links
      |     |  |
      |     |  |             +-size      +-last modification date and time
     _|_   _|_ |            _|__ ________|_______
    drwxr-xr-x 2 ataka root 4096 2008-11-04 16:58 ataka
        ___      _____ ____                       _____
         |         |    |                           |
         |         |    |                           +-name of file or directory
         |         |    |
         |         |    +-the group that the group permissions applies to
         |         |
         |         +-owner
         |
         +-permissions that apply to users who are members of the group

See man ls, man chmod and info ls or info coreutils 'ls invocation' for more information.

Answer 2

Yes. ataka is an username and root is a group.