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Famous people born on December 17

Short answer

Well-known people born on December 17 include Pope Francis (1936), Humphry Davy (1778), Milla Jovovich (1975) and Muhammadu Buhari (1942). Our list below has 98 people for this date, most widely covered first.

This list covers people whose Wikidata record gives December 17 as their exact birth date and who have articles in at least 28 Wikipedia language editions. The earliest birth year here is 1706 (Émilie du Châtelet) and the most recent is 2007 (James, Earl of Wessex). The most common fields on this date: football, actor, writer.

Who was born on December 17?

  1. Pope Francis 1936 266th pope of the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025
  2. Humphry Davy 1778 British chemist
  3. Milla Jovovich 1975 American actress
  4. Muhammadu Buhari 1942 Former President of Nigeria from 1983 to 1985 and 2015 to 2025
  5. Manny Pacquiao 1978 Filipino boxer, basketball player, singer, actor, politician and philanthropist
  6. Willard Libby 1908 American physical chemist
  7. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu 1948 Turkish politician
  8. Chelsea Manning 1987 American activist and whistleblower
  9. Joseph Henry 1797 American scientist and the 1st Secretary of the Smithsonian
  10. Giovanni Ribisi 1974 American actor
  11. Émilie du Châtelet 1706 Era chiná physicist, and author
  12. Martin Ødegaard 1998 Norwegian footballer
  13. Mykola Azarov 1947 Ukrainian politician
  14. Simo Häyhä 1905 Finnish military sniper
  15. André Ayew 1989 Ghanaian footballer
  16. Sarah Paulson 1974 American actress
  17. Laurie Holden 1969 American-Canadian actress
  18. Maria I of Portugal 1734 Portuguese monarch from 1777 to 1816
  19. Yann Sommer 1988 Swiss association football player
  20. Sophus Lie 1842 Norwegian mathematician
  21. Igor Girkin 1970 Russian citizen from Moscow who played a significant role in the War in Donbass
  22. Bill Pullman 1953 American actor
  23. William Lyon Mackenzie King 1874 10th Prime Minister of Canada
  24. Armin Mueller-Stahl 1930 German actor
  25. Katina Paxinou 1900 Greek actress
  26. Erskine Caldwell 1903 American novelist, short story writer, travel writer, essayist
  27. Domenico Cimarosa 1749 Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school
  28. Bernard Hill 1944 British actor
  29. John Abraham 1972 Indian film actor, producer and model
  30. Claire Forlani 1971 British actress
  31. Tim Wiese 1981 German footballer
  32. Katheryn Winnick 1977 Canadian film and television actress
  33. Robert A. Dahl 1915 American political scientist
  34. Klaus Kinkel 1936 Chairman of the FDP
  35. David Rudisha 1988 Kenyan middle distance runner
  36. James, Earl of Wessex 2007 Son of Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh
  37. Wes Studi 1947 American actor
  38. Rian Johnson 1973 American filmmaker
  39. John Kennedy Toole 1937 American novelist
  40. Andrew Nabbout 1992 Australian association football player
  41. Hu Shih 1891 Chinese scholar, writer and philosopher
  42. Mohammad Hidayatullah 1905 Vice President of India from 1979 to 1984
  43. John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery
  44. Archduke Franz Karl of Austria 1802 Austrian archduke
  45. Penelope Fitzgerald 1916 British writer and poet
  46. Riteish Deshmukh 1978 Indian actor, television-presenter and movie-producer
  47. Mary Cartwright 1900 British mathematician
  48. Ford Madox Ford 1873 English writer and publisher
  49. Ernie Hudson 1945 American actor and former U.S. Marine
  50. Jacqueline Wilson 1945 English novelist
  51. Wesley Fofana 2000 French footballer
  52. Kazys Grinius 1866 Third President of Lithuania from 7 June 1926 until 17 December 1926
  53. Paul Rodgers 1949 British-Canadian musician
  54. Eugene Levy 1946 Canadian actor and comedian
  55. Paula Radcliffe 1973 English long-distance runner
  56. Kana Kitahara 1988 Japanese association football player
  57. Peter Snell 1938 New Zealand athlete
  58. Claudio Suárez 1968 Mexican footballer
  59. Stefania 2002 Dutch singer
  60. Émile Faguet 1847 French literary critic
  61. Abde Ezzalzouli 2001 Moroccan association football player
  62. Liédson 1977 Portuguese footballer
  63. Oksana Fedorova 1977 Russian singer, model presenter and past Miss Universe
  64. Sébastien Ogier 1983 French World Rally Championship driver
  65. Erwin Piscator 1893 German theatre director
  66. Kenneth E. Iverson 1920 Canadian computer scientist
  67. Gigi D'Agostino 1967 Italian DJ
  68. Josef Lada 1887 Czech illustrator, painter, caricaturist, scenographer and writer
  69. Pierre-Paul Émile Roux 1853 French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist
  70. Ferenc Bene 1944 Hungarian footballer
  71. Alexander Emanuel Agassiz 1835 Swiss-American zoologist and engineer
  72. Dynamo 1982 British illusionist
  73. Arnaud Clément 1977 French tennis player
  74. Patrick Müller 1976 Swiss footballer
  75. Nabbanja Robinah 1969 Ugandan politician
  76. Peter Farrelly 1956 American film director, producer and screenwriter
  77. Christopher A. Wray 1966 Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2017 to 2025
  78. Ray Wilson 1934 English footballer
  79. Abderrazak Hamdallah 1990 Moroccan soccer player
  80. José Tolentino de Mendonça 1965 Portuguese writer, poet, theologian and Catholic cardinal
  81. John Kerr 1824 Scottish physicist and pioneer in the field of electro-optics
  82. Jaroslav Pelikan 1923 US historian of Christianity, Christian theology and medieval intellectual history at Yale
  83. Nat Wolff 1994 American actor, musician, and singer-songwriter
  84. Noah Sadiki 2004 Congolese footballer
  85. Iván Pedroso 1972 Cuban long jumper
  86. Sotiris Kaiafas 1949 Cypriot footballer
  87. Castello Lukeba 2002 French footballer
  88. Chidi Odiah 1983 Nigerian footballer
  89. Alexander Beliavsky 1953 Ukrainian and Slovenian chess player
  90. Mike Mills 1958 American musician; multi-instrumentalist for American alternative rock band R.E.M.
  91. Mary Kenneth Keller 1913 First American woman to receive a PhD in computer science; simultaneously with Irving…
  92. Ari Folman 1962 Israeli film director, screenwriter, animator and film score composer (b. 1962)
  93. Shoma Uno 1997 Japanese figure skater
  94. Tatyana Kazankina 1951 Soviet athletics competitor
  95. Herzi Halevi 1967 Chief of the General Staff of Israel Defense Forces
  96. Christof Innerhofer 1984 Italian alpine skier
  97. Miriana Conte 2000 Maltese singer
  98. Jessi 1988 South Korean-American rapper and singer

Names link to each person's Wikidata entry, the source of the date. Data: Wikidata (CC0), refreshed October 30, 2026. People born on December 17 share the 17th of December as a birthday; check the Famous Birthdays Finder for any other date.

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