List of people from Greece

Greek diaspora Constantinople and Asia Minor: Africa: Other regions: Other groups: Other languages This is a list of notable Greeks.

See also: This is a list of ethnic Greeks who were born after the Declaration of the Greek War of Independence (1821), outside the borders of the Greek state.

The list does not include Greeks born in the diasporan communities or Greeks of Cyprus (after its independence in 1960), but only Greeks born in the traditional Greek homelands (the Balkans, Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean shores).

Phidippides , acclaimed runner and 'inspirator' of the Olympic Marathon race , who had run back and forth between Athens and Sparta in order to relay news of the Battle of Marathon, resulting in his death from ultimate exhaustion, when in his last breath he yelled out "We (the Greeks) won". Painting by Luc-Olivier Merson , 1869.
Milo of Croton , wrestler and the most acclaimed ancient Olympian
Panagiotis Giannakis , former 1987 EuroBasket Team Captain, former Olympiacos Head coach
Greg Louganis , four times Greek-American Olympic Gold Medalist (Diving)
Leonidas Pyrgos , first modern Olympics Gold Medalist (Fencing)
Konstantinos Tsiklitiras , renowned Olympic long jumper
Mike Lazaridis , tech entrepreneur, BlackBerry founder
Aliki Diplarakou , Miss Europe 1930
Alexander the Great , king of the city state of Macedon, tutored and personally mentored by Aristotle , first united the Greek city states, then conquered the Persian Empire as well as Egypt; named and founded the city of Alexandria
Michelangelo's rendering of Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator
Bust of Leonidas I , famed king of Sparta who led his troops at the Battle of Thermopylae against a Persian invasion of the Greek city states, perhaps most famous for having told the Persian King Xerxes his " Molon labe ", or "Come and take them", when ordered to surrender and to give up his weapons once his unit's position had been betrayed and surrounded
Pericles , strategos of the city state of Athens during the Peloponnesian War
Ioannis Kapodistrias, first Prime Minister of the modern Greek state
Theodoros Kolokotronis , leading Greek general in the Greek Revolution for Independence against the Ottoman Empire
Ioannis Metaxas in 1937, Fascist dictator of Greece who refused the invasion of Italian troops, famously responding to Benito Mussolini , "Then it is war".
Eleutherios Venizelos , liberal Prime Minister of Greece during the Balkan Wars and World War I , pushing for a Megali Idea strategy against the Ottoman Empire during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
Franz Ferdinand vocalist and guitarist Alex Kapranos
Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee
Marinella in 2006, classical Greek singer and songwriter
Helena Paparizou in 2013, Eurovision winner of 2005
Yanni , Kalamata native world-famous Greek composer, pianist and keyboardist
El Greco : Portrait of a Man (presumed self-portrait, c. 1595–1600)
Bust of Aristotle , the most influential and cited philosopher in history, student of Plato and teacher and tutor of Alexander the Great
Plato , as painted by Michelangelo, whose The Republic and other works on morality and politics are listed as some of the most influential works in philosophy
Archimedes , ancient influential inventor and scientist; spearheaded insights into mathematical calculus.
Euclid , mathematician and inventor, famous still today for his Elements
Constantin Carathéodory , acclaimed mathematician and scientist, mentor and teacher to Albert Einstein
Georgios Papanikolaou , scientist and inventor; developed the pap test , named after him, in order to treat and prevent ovarian cancer.
The Sculptor Phidias best known for his sculptures of the Seven Wonders of the World masterpieces for the Temple of Zeus
Aristotle Onassis in 1932, who later would create one of the largest shipping conglomerates of his day; married American first lady and widow Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Aesop , accredited with the Fables
Bust of Homer , composer and writer of the Iliad and Odyssey , the oldest poetry of Western civilization
Bust of Sophocles , writer of Oedipus Rex , one of the three most recomposed Greek playwrights of antiquity alongside Euripides and Aeschylus
Odysseus Elytis in 1974, the 1979 Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Greek-American author David Sedaris in June 2008, author best known for his When You Are Engulfed in Flames
George Seferis , 1963 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature