Famous birthdays
Famous people born on January 1
Short answer
Well-known people born on January 1 include J. D. Salinger (1919), Pierre de Coubertin (1863), Omar al-Bashir (1944) and Christine Lagarde (1956). Our list below has 159 people for this date, most widely covered first.
This list covers people whose Wikidata record gives January 1 as their exact birth date and who have articles in at least 28 Wikipedia language editions. The earliest birth year here is 1600 (Gioachino Greco) and the most recent is 2008 (Hamza Abdelkarim). The most common fields on this date: football, politician, writer.
Who was born on January 1?
- J. D. Salinger 1919 American author
- Pierre de Coubertin 1863 Founder of modern Olympic Games, pedagogue and historian
- Omar al-Bashir 1944 President of Sudan from 1989 to 2019
- Christine Lagarde 1956 President of the European Central Bank
- E. M. Forster 1879 English novelist
- Satyendra Nath Bose 1894 Indian Bengali physicist and polymath
- Stepan Bandera 1909 Ukrainian nationalist leader
- Alassane Ouattara 1942 President of Ivory Coast since 2010
- Lilian Thuram 1972 French footballer
- George Washington Carver 1864 African American botanist and inventor
- Abdul Hamid 1944 President of Bangladesh in 2013-2023
- Davor Šuker 1968 Croatian footballer
- James George Frazer 1854 Scottish social anthropologist
- J. Edgar Hoover 1895 American law enforcement administrator
- Jack Wilshere 1992 English association football player
- Rivelino 1946 Brazilian association football player and manager
- Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani 1952 Emir of Qatar from 1995 to 2013
- Muhammad Abduh 1849 Egyptian Islamic jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer
- Eiichiro Oda 1975 Japanese manga artist
- Verne Troyer 1969 American actor
- Maurice Béjart 1927 French-born Swiss ballet dancer and choreographer
- Vidya Balan 1979 Indian film actress
- Francisco Macías Nguema Biyoko 1924 Equatoguinean politician, 1st and former President of Equatorial Guinea
- Mahamadou Issoufou 1952 President of Niger from 2011 to 2021
- Martin Evans 1941 English developmental biologist
- Vajiravudh 1881 King of Siam from 1910 to 1925
- Victoria Amelina 1986 Ukrainian writer and activist
- Mohammed Amin al-Husseini 1895 Palestinian Arab nationalist
- Adunis 1930 Syrian poet, writer and translator
- Fuad Masum 1938 7th President of the Republic of Iraq
- Maria Edgeworth 1768 Irish writer
- Chiune Sugihara 1900 Japanese diplomat, Righteous Among the Nations
- Jacques Le Goff 1924 French historian
- Ismail al-Faruqi 1921 Palestinian-American Muslim philosopher and scholar
- Vernon L. Smith 1927 American economist
- David Nalbandian 1982 Argentine tennis player
- Sardar Azmoun 1995 Iranian association football player
- Mohamed Bazoum 1960 President of Niger from 2021 to 2023
- Waichiro Omura 1933 Japanese association football player
- Ousmane Sembène 1923 Senegalese film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author
- Alfred Stieglitz 1864 American photographer
- Sifan Hassan 1993 Ethiopian-born Dutch middle- and long-distance runner
- Paolo Guerrero 1984 Peruvian association football player
- Ivica Dačić 1966 Serbian politician
- Noor Inayat Khan 1914 WW2 SOE British agent
- Ichirō Hatoyama 1883 Prime Minister of Japan from 1954 to 1956
- Hasan Salihamidžić 1977 Bosnian football player and executive
- Sonali Bendre 1975 Indian actress
- Kim Philby 1912 KGB mole for the Soviet Union
- Manuel Roxas 1892 President of the Philippines from 1946 to 1948
- Azali Assoumani 1959 President of Comoros
- Charlie Munger 1924 American businessman
- Dana Andrews 1909 American actor
- John Michael Jumper 1985 American chemist and AI expert
- Gonzalo Montiel 1997 Argentinian association football player
- Steven Davis 1985 Northern Irish association football player
- Abdalla Hamdok 1956 Sudanese public administrator and former prime minister
- Paul Revere 1735 American silversmith and Patriot in the American Revolution
- Hong Xiuquan 1814 Chinese revolutionary and leader of Taiping Rebellion
- Valentina Cortese 1923 Italian actress
- Ice Spice 2000 American rapper
- Michel Onfray 1959 French philosopher
- Christian Thomasius 1655 German philosopher
- Daniel Jarque 1983 Spanish footballer
- Andreas Pereira 1996 Brazilian-Belgian association football player
- Mahmoud Dahoud 1996 German-Syrian association football player
- Gianluca Scamacca 1999 Italian association football player
- John X of Antioch 1955 Patriarch of Antioch
- Mladen Petrić 1981 Croatian association football player
- Étienne Cabet 1788 French philosopher
- Adil Abdul-Mahdi 1942 Iraqi politician
- Suleiman I of Persia 1647 The eighth Safavid shah
- Bob Menendez 1954 American lawyer and politician
- Mary Beard 1955 English classicist
- Harue Sato 1976 Japanese association football player
- Devlet Bahçeli 1948 Leader of the Nationalist Action Party
- Gary Johnson 1953 American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico
- Jacky Ickx 1945 Belgian racecar driver
- Tihomir Orešković 1966 Croatian-Canadian entrepreneur and politician
- Colin Morgan 1986 Northern Irish actor
- Khaled Asaad 1932 Syrian archeologist
- Abdul Ahad Mohmand 1959 Afghan astronaut
- Ouida 1839 British novelist
- Mathias Jensen 1996 Danish association football player
- Michèle Mercier 1939 French actress
- André Marie Constant Duméril 1774 French zoologist
- William Fox 1879 Hungarian-American film producer
- Kristijonas Donelaitis 1714 Prussian Lithuanian poet and Lutheran pastor
- Charles Bickford 1891 American actor
- Deepa Mehta 1950 Indo Canadian film director and screenwriter
- Shane Duffy 1992 Irish association football player
- Simon Adingra 2002 Ivorian association football player
- Utagawa Kuniyoshi 1798 Japanese ukiyo-e artist
- Poppy 1995 American singer
- Angourie Rice 2001 Australian actress
- Qi Baishi 1864 Chinese painter
- Go-Sai 1638 Emperor of Japan
- Claudio Villa 1926 Italian singer and actor
- Yusuf Dikeç 1973 Turkish sport shooter
- Zafarullah Khan Jamali 1944 15th Prime Minister of Pakistan
- Garegin Nzhdeh 1886 Armenian politician and philosopher
- Tiago Splitter 1985 Brazilian basketball player
- Evangelos Venizelos 1957 Greek politician
- Masaaki Yanagishita 1960 Japanese association football player and manager
- Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry 1904 Pakistani politician
- Yusef of Morocco 1882 Sultan of Morocco
- Egidio Arévalo Rios 1982 Uruguayan footballer
- Kendall Waston 1988 Costa Rican footballer
- Jon Flanagan 1993 English association football player
- Joe Orton 1933 English playwright
- Charles Bernard Renouvier 1815 French philosopher
- Alberico Evani 1963 Italian footballer and manager
- Mariano Azuela 1873 Mexican author and physician
- Pavel Grachev 1948 Russian general
- Carole Landis 1919 American actress
- Richard Sennett 1943 American sociologist and academic
- Alain Mimoun 1921 French long-distance runner
- Ludovic Halévy 1834 French writer
- Nana Dzagnidze 1987 Georgian chess player
- Ramaz Shengelia 1957 Georgian footballer
- Thibaw Min 1859 Last king of Burma
- Essaïd Belkalem 1989 Algerian association football player
- Morris Chestnut 1969 American actor
- Country Joe McDonald 1942 American musician
- Spencer Tunick 1967 American photographer
- Jon Corzine 1947 American politician in New Jersey
- Hamza Abdelkarim 2008 Egyptian footballer
- Abdoulaye Doucouré 1993 French-Malian footballer
- Zsolt Baumgartner 1981 Hungarian racing driver
- Gioachino Greco 1600 Italian chess player
- Gisela 1979 Spanish singer and actress
- Tusse 2002 Swedish singer
- İbrahim Tatlıses 1952 Turkish musician
- Khertek Anchimaa-Toka 1912 Tuvan politician, first non-royal female head of state
- Ihor Pavlyuk 1967 Ukrainian writer
- Iván Balliu 1992 Albanian-Spanish association football player
- Arthur Coleman Danto 1924 American art critic and philosopher
- Glen Davis 1986 American basketball player
- Betsy Ross 1752 American upholsterer who was credited by her relatives with making the first American flag
- Rafael Bastos 1985 Brazilian association football player
- Stefan Reinartz 1989 German footballer
- Andrii Sybiha 1975 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
- Lamine Camara 2004 Senegalese footballer
- Xavier Cugat 1900 Spanish-Cuban musician and bandleader
- William J. Donovan 1883 U.S. Army soldier during WWII, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, head of the OSS
- Ernest Jones 1879 Welsh psychiatrist & psychoanalyst
- Meryl Davis 1987 American ice dancer
- Viktor Ullmann 1898 Austrian composer deported to Terezin
- Viola 1969 Brazilian footballer
- Evan Goldberg 1982 Canadian screenwriter
- Ali Maâloul 1990 Egypt association football player
- Yohann Diniz 1978 French racewalker
- César Baldaccini 1921 French sculptor
- Yuen Woo-ping 1945 Hong Kong martial arts choreographer and film director
- Ziad Rahbani 1956 Lebanese musician and writer
- Sergey Avdeyev 1956 Soviet and Russian cosmonaut
- Vladimir Titov 1947 Soviet and Russian cosmonaut
- Gennadi Sarafanov 1942 Soviet cosmonaut
- Branko Ćopić 1915 Yugoslav writer
Names link to each person's Wikidata entry, the source of the date. Data: Wikidata (CC0), refreshed October 30, 2026. People born on January 1 share the 1st of January as a birthday; check the Famous Birthdays Finder for any other date.