Namvar Singh (Hindi: नामवर सिंह) (28 July 1926 – 19 February 2019) was an Indian literary critic, linguist, academician and theoretician.

He was the founder and first chairman of Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre of Indian Languages and continued to remain as a professor emeritus after his retirement in 1992.

Singh was born on 28 July 1926 in Jiyanpur village in Varanasi (now under Chandauli) District of Uttar Pradesh, India.

[4] He enrolled in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for higher studies, where he completed his bachelor's in 1949 and master's with gold medal in 1951.

[10][11][12] In 1959, Singh unsuccessfully contested the general election as a Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate from the Chandauli constituency in Uttar Pradesh.