This is a list of notable people from the real world (whether deceased or living, both past and present) who have been prominently featured in works of fiction, mass media, and popular culture in general.
Groups of people
General categories
Arts/media/entertainment groups
- The Beatles
- The Doors
- Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
- The Inklings
- The Jackson 5
- Laurel and Hardy
- Marx Brothers
- Mayhem
- Milli Vanilli
- Mötley Crüe
- Oingo Boingo
- Queen (Band)
- The Runaways
- Samoan Dynasty
- Von Erich Family
Military/political organizations
- The 47 Ronin
- The Cathars
- The Crusading Orders:
- The French Revolution:
- The Hashshashin
- The Illuminati
- Ku Klux Klan
- The Shinsengumi
National/political leaders (monarchs and royalty)
- The British Monarchy
- French Monarchies
- The Korean Monarchy
- The Monégasque Royal Family
- The Popes (in general)
- Notable Popes (specific individuals)
- Prussian Kings and Kaisers
- Roman Emperors
- Russian Tsars
- Swedish Kings
- Other Royal Families
National/political leaders (presidents and prime ministers)
- Leaders of Germany
- The Presidents of France
- The Presidents of the United States
- Prime Ministers of Canada
- Prime Ministers of Ireland (though the correct title is Taoiseach, plural Taoisigh)
- Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom
- Russian Heads of State
- Supreme Leaders of North Korea
Miscellaneous groups of people
Individual people
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A
- Aaliyah
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- John Adams
- John Quincy Adams
- Aeschylus
- Aesop
- Æthelflæd
- Andre Agassi
- Spiro Agnew
- Julius Agricola
- Juan del Águila
- Lope de Aguirre
- Akechi Mitsuhide
- Akhenaten
- The Duke of Alba
- Madeleine Albright
- Louisa May Alcott
- Buzz Aldrin
- Robert Aldrich
- Pope Alexander VI (born Rodrigo Borgia)
- Alexander the Great
- Raúl Alfonsín
- Alfred the Great
- Muhammad Ali (AKA Cassius Clay)
- Dante Alighieri
- Pedro de Alvarado
- Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias
- Idi Amin
- Fernando Amorsolo
- Hans Christian Andersen
- Pamela Anderson
- Ancus Marcius
- André the Giant
- Yuri Andropov
- Maya Angelou
- Mark Antony
- Johnny Appleseed
- Thomas Aquinas
- Yolande Of Aragon
- Aristophanes
- Aristotle
- Louis Armstrong
- Neil Armstrong
- Desi Arnaz
- Benedict Arnold
- Matthew Arnold
- François-Marie "Voltaire" Arouet
- Chester A. Arthur
- Herbert Henry Asquith
- Bashar al-Assad
- Attila the Hun
- Clement Attlee
- Julie d'Aubigny
- Augustine of Hippo
- Augustus
- Marcus Aurelius
- Jane Austen
- "Stone Cold" Steve Austin
- John of Austria
- Margaret of Austria
- Jerónimo de Ayanz
B
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Ralph Bagnold
- Josephine Baker
- Stanley Baldwin
- Arthur Balfour
- Lucille Ball
- Honoré de Balzac
- Tyra Banks
- Hannibal Barca
- Antonio Barceló
- Charles Barkley
- Charles Baudelaire
- Anne de Beaujeu
- John Barrymore
- Roland Barthes
- Elizabeth Báthory
- Fulgencio Batista
- Álvaro de Bazán
- Flavius Belisarius
- Thomas Becket
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Dido Elizabeth Belle
- Hilaire Belloc
- John Belushi
- David Ben-Gurion
- Dirk Benedict
- Robert Hugh Benson
- Götz von Berlichingen
- Hector Berlioz
- Saraya Bevis aka "Brittani Knight" aka "Paige"
- Joe Biden
- Michael Biehn
- Osama bin Laden
- Otto von Bismarck
- Eric "George Orwell" Blair
- Tony Blair
- William Blake
- Helena Blavatsky
- Giovanni Boccaccio
- Boethius
- Humphrey Bogart
- Anne Boleyn
- Simón Bolívar
- Jair Bolsonaro
- Napoléon Bonaparte
- Anne Bonny
- Salvatore "Sonny" Bono
- John Wilkes Booth
- Lizzie Borden
- Hieronymus Bosch
- Boudica
- William-Adolphe Bouguereau
- Clara Bow
- David Bowie
- Tom Brady
- Johannes Brahms
- Louis Braille
- Leonid Brezhnev
- Bobby Brown
- Gordon Brown
- James Brown
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- Bruiser Brody
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel
- Marcus Junius Brutus
- William Jennings Bryan
- Kobe Bryant
- Yul Brynner
- James Buchanan
- Ted Bundy
- Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Richard Burton
- Wilhelm Busch
- George H. W. Bush
- George W. Bush
- Lord George Byron
C
- Julius Caesar
- Caligula
- James Callaghan
- Cab Calloway
- David Cameron
- James Cameron
- Naomi Campbell
- George Canning
- Al Capone
- Gina Carano
- Carolus Rex
- Thomas Carlyle
- Jimmy Carter
- Francisco de Carvajal
- Giacomo Casanova
- Joanna of Castile
- William Castle
- Fidel Castro
- Lord Castlereagh
- Catherine of Aragon
- Catherine the Great
- The Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile)
- Neville Chamberlain
- Wilt Chamberlain
- Jackie Chan
- Coco Chanel
- Lon Chaney
- Charlie Chaplin
- Charlemagne
- Charles I
- Charles II
- Charles II of Spain
- Charles III
- Charles III of Spain
- Charles V
- Charles, Duke of Burgundy
- Ray Charles
- Chevy Chase
- François-René de Chateaubriand
- Geoffrey Chaucer
- Cesar Chavez
- Hugo Chávez
- Dick Cheney
- Konstantin Chernenko
- Leonard Chess
- G. K. Chesterton
- Chiang Kai-shek
- Julia Child
- Shirley Chisholm
- Fryderyk Chopin
- Winston Churchill
- Cicero
- El Cid Campeador
- Claudius
- Henry Clay
- Nick Clegg
- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
- Cleopatra VII
- Grover Cleveland
- Anne of Cleves
- Bill Clinton
- Hillary Clinton
- William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Christopher Columbus
- Sean Combs
- Sean Connery
- Calvin Coolidge
- Confucius (AKA Kong Fuzi)
- Alonso de Contreras
- Charlotte Corday
- Hernán Cortés
- Bill Cosby
- The Count of St. Germain
- Jacques Cousteau
- Marcus Licinius Crassus
- Cindy Crawford
- Joan Crawford
- Davy Crockett
- Oliver Cromwell
- Aleister Crowley (AKA Edward Crowley)
- Marie Curie (AKA Maria Sklodowska)
- Stephen Curry
- Cyrus the Great
D
- Salvador Dalí
- Charles Darwin
- Date Masamune
- Bette Davis
- Jefferson Davis
- Sammy Davis Jr.
- James Dean
- Eugene Debs
- Claude Debussy
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Olivia de Havilland
- Deng Xiaoping
- Christina of Denmark
- Jacques Derrida
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Bernal Díaz del Castillo
- Charles Dickens
- John Dillinger
- Walt Disney
- Benjamin Disraeli
- Bob Dole
- Dolphy
- Karl Dönitz
- John Donne
- Gustave Doré
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Alec Douglas-Home
- Black Douglas
- Kirk Douglas
- Frederick Douglass
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Dr. Demento
- Sir Francis Drake
- Eduardo Duhalde
- Michael Dukakis
- Alberto Santos Dumont
- Alexandre Dumas
- Antonín Dvořák
- Bob Dylan
E
F
- Douglas Fairbanks
- Michael Faraday
- Ed Farhat
- Alexander Farnese
- Faust
- Farrah Fawcett
- Guy Fawkes
- Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand
- Ferdinand VI
- Ferdinand VII
- Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
- Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
- Geraldine Ferraro
- Lou Ferrigno
- Richard Feynman
- Millard Fillmore
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Ric Flair
- Ian Fleming
- Florence Nightingale
- Errol Flynn
- Mick Foley
- Betty Ford
- Carole Ann Ford
- Gerald Ford
- John Ford
- Lita Ford
- John Forsythe
- Bob Fosse
- Francisco Franco (still dead)
- Claude François
- Benjamin Franklin
- Franz Ferdinand of Austria
- William Frawley
- Frederick the Great
- Sigmund Freud
- Fuuma Kotaro
G
- Clark Gable
- Muammar Gaddafi
- Yuri Gagarin
- Galileo Galilei
- Bernardo de Gálvez
- Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi
- Blasco de Garay
- Greta Garbo
- Diego García de Paredes
- Carlos Gardel
- Ava Gardner
- James A Garfield
- Judy Garland
- Marcus Garvey
- Charles de Gaulle
- Lou Gehrig
- Ed Gein
- Genghis Khan (AKA Temüjin)
- George III
- David Lloyd George
- Einar Gerhardsen
- Giant Baba
- Lewis Gilbert
- Newt Gingrich
- William Gladstone
- Hugh Glass
- John Glenn
- Joseph Goebbels
- Vincent van Gogh
- Barry Goldwater
- Giovanni Gonnelli
- Dick Goodwin
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Al Gore
- Hermann Göring
- Baltasar Gracián
- James Graham, Marquis of Montrose
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Wayne Gretzky
- Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
- Gus Grissom
- Guan Yu
- Christopher Guest
- Che Guevara
- Johannes Gutenberg
- Woody Guthrie
- Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta "El Santo"
H
- Hadrian
- Alexander Hamilton
- George Hamilton-Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen
- Linda Hamilton
- Margaret Hamilton
- Hammurabi
- Hatshepsut
- George Frederic Handel
- Tonya Harding
- Warren G. Harding
- Jean Harlow
- Kamala Harris
- Benjamin Harrison
- George Harrison
- William Henry Harrison
- Bret Hart
- William Hartnell
- David Hasselhoff
- Willi Herold
- Hattori Hanzō
- Tony Hawk
- Stephen Hawking
- Joseph Haydn
- Rutherford B. Hayes
- Simo Häyhä
- Henry II
- Henry III
- Henry IV
- Henry VIII
- Edward Heath
- Jimi Hendrix
- Jim Henson
- Audrey Hepburn
- Katharine Hepburn
- Herodotus
- Hesiod
- Charlton Heston
- Reinhard Heydrich
- Dietrich Von Hildebrand
- Jacqueline Hill
- Heinrich Himmler
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Adolf Hitler
- Jimmy Hoffa
- Hulk Hogan
- Billie Holiday
- Charles Holley, aka Buddy Holly
- Homer
- Honda Tadakatsu
- Anthony Hopkins
- Catherine Howard
- Herbert Hoover
- Horace
- Harry Houdini
- Whitney Houston
- Lafayette Ronald "L. Ron" Hubbard
- Rock Hudson
- Howard Hughes
- Victor Hugo
- Hubert Humphrey
- Sammo Hung
- John Hurt
- Saddam Hussein
I
J
- Jack the Ripper
- Andrew Jackson
- Bo Jackson
- Janet Jackson
- Kate Jackson
- Michael Jackson
- Grand Vizier Jafar
- James VI and I
- James II
- Jesse James
- LeBron James
- Sidney James
- Thomas Jefferson
- Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
- Bruce (later Caitlyn) Jenner
- Jesus Christ
- Joan Jett
- Joan of Arc
- Steve Jobs
- Elton John
- King John of England
- Andrew Johnson
- Boris Johnson
- Dwayne Johnson
- Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr.
- Katherine Johnson
- Lyndon Johnson
- Rocky Johnson
- Samuel Johnson
- Grace Jones
- Jim Jones
- Michael Jordan
- James Joyce
- Pope Julius II (AKA Giuliano Rovere)
- Carl Jung
- Junkyard Dog
- Decimus Junius "Juvenal" Juvenalis
K
- Franz Kafka
- Frida Kahlo
- Kim Kardashian
- Andy Kaufman
- Helen Keller
- Grace Kelly
- Ned Kelly
- Jacqueline Kennedy
- John F. Kennedy
- John F. Kennedy Jr.
- Robert F. Kennedy
- Ted Kennedy
- Jack Kerouac
- John Kerry
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Søren Kierkegaard
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Stephen King
- Néstor Kirchner
- Henry Kissinger
- Amy Klobuchar
- Hideo Kojima
- Stanley Kubrick
- Akira Kurosawa
L
- Marquis de La Fayette
- William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
- Verity Lambert
- Laozi
- Cyndi Lauper
- Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
- Andrew Bonar Law
- Jerry Lawler
- Thomas Edward "T.E." Lawrence (AKA "Lawrence of Arabia")
- A.J. Lee
- Brandon Lee
- Bruce Lee
- Christopher Lee
- Stan Lee
- Janet Leigh
- Vivien Leigh
- Vladimir Lenin
- John Lennon
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Giacomo Leopardi
- Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis
- John Lewis
- Blas de Lezo
- Liberace
- Abraham Lincoln
- Franz Liszt
- Carole Lombard
- Huey Long
- Louis XI
- Louis XIII
- Louis XIV
- Louis XV
- Louis XVI
- Howard Phillips "H.P." Lovecraft
- Lü Bu
- George Lucas
- Lucretia
- Dolph Lundgren
- Ludwig II of Bavaria
M
- Douglas MacArthur
- Ramsay Mac Donald
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- Fitzroy Maclean
- Harold Macmillan
- Mauricio Macri
- James Madison
- Madonna
- Ferdinand Magellan
- René Magritte
- Gustav Mahler
- John Major
- Léo Major
- Lee Majors
- Georgy Malenkov
- La Malinche
- Nelson Mandela
- Gustav Mannerheim
- Ferdinand Marcos
- Margaret of York
- Maria Theresa
- Marie-Antoinette
- Bob Marley
- Christopher Marlowe
- Charles Manson
- Mao Zedong
- George R. R. Martin
- Karl Marx
- The Virgin Mary
- Mary I
- Mary, Duchess of Burgundy
- Mary of Hungary
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- Bat Masterson
- Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
- Brian May
- Karl May
- Theresa May
- John McCain
- Henry "Billy the Kid" McCarty
- Joseph McCarthy
- Paul McCartney
- Hattie McDaniel
- George McGovern
- William McKinley
- Vince McMahon
- Robert McNamara
- Steve McQueen (actor)
- Caterina de Medici
- Felix Mendelssohn
- Carlos Menem
- Josef Mengele
- Freddie Mercury (AKA Farrokh Bulsara)
- Angela Merkel
- Javier Milei
- Vera Miles
- Harvey Milk
- Arthur Miller
- Slobodan Milošević
- Minamoto no Yoshitsune
- Miss Elizabeth
- Miyamoto Musashi
- Shigeru Miyamoto
- Hayao Miyazaki
- Molière
- Walter Mondale
- James Monroe
- Marilyn Monroe
- Ricardo Montalbán
- Bernard Law Montgomery
- Elizabeth Montgomery
- Thomas More
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Mr. T
- Muhammad
- Muramasa
- Audie Murphy
- Bill Murray
- Edward R. Murrow
- Musashibo Benkei
- Benito Mussolini
- Modest Mussorgsky
N
- Gamal Abdel Nasser
- Marguerite De Navarre
- Nero
- Benjamin Netanyahu
- John Henry Newman
- Sydney Newman
- Gavin Newsom
- Isaac Newton
- Nicholas II
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Leonard Nimoy
- Richard Nixon
- Chuck Norris
- Lord Frederick North
- Emperor Norton
- Nostradamus
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
- Vasco Núñez de Balboa
- Numa Pompilius
O
P
- Manny Pacquiao
- Cardinal Mazarin
- Thomas Paine
- Sarah Palin
- Paracelsus
- Colonel Tom Parker
- Catherine Parr
- Blaise Pascal
- Pat Patterson
- Ron Paul
- Quintus Pedius
- Pedro II
- Robert Peel
- Nancy Pelosi
- Mike Pence
- George Peppard
- Spencer Perceval
- Isaac Peral
- Pericles
- Anthony Perkins
- Eva Perón
- Isabel Perón
- Juan Domingo Perón
- Ross Perot
- Charles Perrault
- Peter the Great
- Michelle Pfeiffer
- Philip II
- Philip III
- Philip IV
- Philip V
- Pablo Picasso
- Franklin Pierce
- Roddy Piper
- Jada Pinkett Smith
- Augusto Pinochet
- William Pitt The Elder
- William Pitt The Younger
- Pope Pius XII (AKA Eugenio Pacelli)
- Francisco Pizarro
- Plato
- Plautus
- Pocahontas
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Fernando Poe, Jr.
- James K. Polk
- Pompey the Great
- Juan Ponce de León
- Alexander Pope
- Cole Porter
- Beatrix Potter
- Colin Powell
- Elvis Presley
- Prince
- Marcel Proust
- Giacomo Puccini
- Vladimir Putin
Q
R
- Harley Race
- Gilda Radner
- Gilles de Rais
- Harold Ramis
- Gordon Ramsay
- Ramses II
- Grigori Rasputin
- Maurice Ravel
- Ronald Reagan
- Christopher Reeve
- George Reeves
- Harry Reid
- Paul Revere
- Burt Reynolds
- Richard the Lionheart
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Leni Riefenstahl
- Rembrandt van Rijn
- Rikidozan
- Robert the Bruce
- Jake Roberts
- Maximilien Robespierre
- Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich
- Jackie Robinson
- Chris Rock
- Nelson Rockefeller
- Norman Rockwell
- Auguste Rodin
- Dennis Rodman
- Adolfo Rodríguez Saá
- Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova
- Julián Romero
- Erwin Rommel
- Mitt Romney
- Romulus
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Betsy Ross
- Hassan Rouhani
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Gioachino Rossini
- Ronda Rousey
- J. K. Rowling
- Fernando de la Rúa
- Peter Paul Rubens
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Prince Rupert of the Rhine
- John Ruskin
- Bill Russell
- John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
- William Russell
- Babe Ruth
- Leo Ryan
S
- Marquis de Sade
- Crown Prince Sado
- Carl Sagan
- Yves Saint Laurent
- Sakamoto Ryōma
- António de Oliveira Salazar
- José de San Martín
- Sanada Yukimura
- Bernie Sanders
- Sappho
- Dick Sargent
- Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
- Sasaki Kojiro
- Erik Satie
- Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud
- Randy Savage
- Franz Schubert
- Dwight Schultz
- Robert Schumann
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Ryan Seacrest
- Steven Seagal
- Peter Sellers
- Seneca
- Seondeok
- Jane Seymour (Royalty)
- Sgt. Slaughter
- Shaka Zulu
- William Shakespeare
- Tupac Shakur (AKA Lesane Parish Crooks)
- William Shatner
- George Bernard Shaw
- William Tecumseh Sherman
- Virgulino "Lampião" da Silva
- Georges Simenon
- Orenthal James "O.J." Simpson
- Frank Sinatra
- Skanderbeg
- Adam Smith
- Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
- Ian Smith
- Jaclyn Smith
- Will Smith
- Snoop Dogg
- Socrates
- Sophocles
- Aaron Spelling
- Steven Spielberg
- Servius Tullius
- Ambrogio Spinola
- Josef Stalin (born Iosif Dzhugashvili)
- Sylvester Stallone
- Ringo Starr (born, and still legally, Richard Starkey)
- Alexander Stephens
- Thaddeus Stevens
- Adlai Stevenson I
- Adlai Stevenson II
- Patrick Stewart
- Igor Stravinsky
- Suetonius Paulinus
- Suleiman the Magnificent
- Anne Sullivan
- Arthur Sullivan
- Jonathan Swift
T
- Rumiko Takahashi
- William Howard Taft
- George Takei
- Takeda Shingen
- Dom Justo Takayama
- Quentin Tarantino
- Tarrare
- Tarquinius Priscus
- Tarquinius Superbus
- Sharon Tate
- Titus Tatius
- Elizabeth Taylor
- Zachary Taylor
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Edward "Blackbeard" Teach
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
- Shirley Temple
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Nikola Tesla
- Osamu Tezuka
- Margaret Thatcher
- Theodora
- Theodosius I
- Thucydides
- Timur the Lame (AKA Tamerlane)
- Josip Broz Tito
- Hideki Tojo
- Tokugawa Ieyasu
- Tokyo Rose
- John Ronald Reuel "J.R.R." Tolkien
- Leo Tolstoy
- Tomoe Gozen
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- Tomás de Torquemada
- Yoshiyuki Tomino
- Akira Toriyama
- Gianello della Torre
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi
- Trajan
- Leon Trotsky
- Patrick Troughton
- Pierre Trudeau
- Harry S. Truman
- Donald Trump
- Melania Trump
- Sojourner Truth
- Eiji Tsuburaya
- Harriet Tubman
- Alan Turing
- John Doman Turner
- Ted Turner
- Tina Turner
- Desmond Tutu
- Tullia Minor
- Tullus Hostilius
- Tutankhamun
- John Tyler
- Mike Tyson
U
V
- Ricardo Valenzuela, aka Ritchie Valens
- Rudolph Valentino
- Martin Van Buren
- Jean-Claude Van Damme
- Vanilla Ice
- Getúlio Vargas
- Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
- Jesse Ventura
- Giuseppe Verdi
- Publius Vergilius "Virgil" Maro
- Johannes Vermeer
- Jules Verne
- Gianni Versace
- Amerigo Vespucci
- Queen Victoria
- Jorge Rafael Videla
- Hervé Villechaize
- Antonio Vivaldi
- Vlad "the Impaler" III (AKA Dracula)
W
- Richard Wagner
- Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace
- Raoul Wallenberg
- Robert Walpole
- Sam Wanamaker
- Andy Warhol
- George Washington
- John Wayne
- Carl Weathers
- Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
- Orson Welles
- Herbert George "H.G." Wells
- Adam West
- Paul Wight aka "The Giant" aka "(The) Big Show"
- Oscar Wilde
- Wilhelm II
- Hank Williams
- Brian Wilson
- Harold Wilson
- Woodrow Wilson
- Barbara Windsor
- Oprah Winfrey
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Stevie Wonder
- Wong Fei-hung
- Natalie Wood
- Virginia Woolf
- Wilbur and Orville Wright
- Wu Zetian
X
- Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz)
- Xi Jinping
- Xenophon
Y
Z
