April 21 is the birthday of 40 notable people we've found so far, including authors, historical figures, actors and athletes, and 2 of them are billionaires.
$13.1Bolder estimate, as of February 2024 · Bloomberg
Mikhail Maratovich Fridman is a Ukrainian-born, Russian–Israeli tycoon and oligarch. He is one of the co-founders of Alfa-Group, a multinational Russian conglomerate. According to Forbes, he was the second-richest Russian as of 2013, moving down to ninth-richest Russian in 2023.
Share of the 40 people we list, by documented field. People can belong to more than one.
Authors33% (13 people)
Actors23% (9 people)
Athletes23% (9 people)
Scientists20% (8 people)
Creators18% (7 people)
Musicians15% (6 people)
Politicians13% (5 people)
Countries
21 countries, most often United States
Citizenship as recorded on Wikidata, one country per person.
United States7 (7 people)
Japan4 (4 people)
United Kingdom4 (4 people)
France3 (3 people)
Germany2 (2 people)
Italy2 (2 people)
Spain2 (2 people)
Life timeline
What were people born on April 21 doing at your age?
Dated milestones from Wikidata (company foundings, awards, top jobs, notable works), placed at the age each person reached them. Add your birth year above to see the ones you have passed.
Rosalie Anderson MacDowell is an American actress and former fashion model. MacDowell is known for her starring film roles in romantic comedies and dramas. She has modeled for Calvin Klein and has been a spokeswoman for L'Oréal since 1986.
Glen James Hansard was an Irish singer-songwriter and actor. From Ballymun in northern Dublin, he busked from his teens. In 1990, he co-founded the Irish rock band the Frames, which he fronted.
Sven-Sebastian Sajak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
James McAvoy is a Scottish actor and director. He made his acting debut as a teen in The Near Room (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his film career began.
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
1816–1855 · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Charlotte Nicholls, commonly known by her maiden name Charlotte Brontë, was an English novelist and poet, and was the elder sister of Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which was first published under the pseudonym Currer Bell.
George Richmond, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mikel Oyarzabal Ugarte is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a forward for La Liga club Real Sociedad, which he captains, and the Spain national team.
James Newell Osterberg Jr., known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor who was the lead vocalist of the proto-punk band the Stooges.
Greg Neate from Sussex, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tatsumi Kimishima is a Japanese businessman who served as the 5th president of Nintendo from September 2015 to June 2018. He was formerly the president of Nintendo of America from January 2002, succeeding Minoru Arakawa, until Reggie Fils-Aimé took his place in May 2006.
Licio Gelli was an Italian Freemason, businessman, and terrorist. A fascist volunteer in his youth, he is chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal and in the Bologna massacre.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Robert James Smith is an English musician who is the co-founder, lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, and only continuous member of the Cure, a post-punk band formed in 1976.
Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca, known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican and American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental virility" in over 100 film, television and stage roles between 1936 and 2001.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally. His ideas continue to influence social theory and research.
Ernst Gottmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Xavi Quentin Shay Simons is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder or winger for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the Netherlands national team.
Original: Steffen Prößdorf; Derivative work: SonoGrazy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez, commonly known as Isco, is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder or left winger for La Liga club Real Betis, which he captains, and the Spain national team.
John Muir, also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States.
Underwood & Underwood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ibn Rushd, Latinized as Averroes, was an Andalusian polymath and jurist who was proficient in a variety of intellectual fields, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psychology, mathematics, neurology, Islamic jurisprudence, law, and linguistics.
Elaine Iva May is an American actress, comedian, writer, and director. She first gained fame in the 1950s for her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols before going on to write and direct several critically acclaimed films.
The Morning Call newspaper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Between 1998 and October 2023, Mohammadi was arrested 13 times and sentenced to 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. She has been the recipient of many human rights awards.
Silvana Mangano was an Italian film actress. She was one of a generation of actors who arose from the neorealist movement, and went on to become a major female star, regarded as a sex symbol for the 1950s and '60s.
Unknown (Mondadori Publishers), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Claire Denis is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film Beau Travail (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s and of all time.
nicolas genin from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist, who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. His books are estimated to have sold over 150 million copies, making him one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time.
Clayton Evans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
August Franz Anton Hans Fritzsche was a German journalist and broadcaster who was the Ministerialdirektor at the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda of Nazi Germany.
Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel was a German pedagogue, a student of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique needs and capabilities.
Verlag A.Pichlers Witwe und Sohn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism.
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Percy Williams Bridgman was an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1946 for his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on the scientific method and on other aspects of the philosophy of science.
Nobel foundation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Jean-Baptiste Biot was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarization of light.
Auguste Lemoine (?), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Paul Karrer was a Swiss organic chemist best known for his research on vitamins. He and British chemist Norman Haworth won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1937.
UnknownUnknown, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Georg Joseph Kamel was a Jesuit missionary, pharmacist and naturalist known for producing the first comprehensive accounts of Philippine flora and fauna and for introducing Philippine nature to the European learned world.
This page lists 40 people born on April 21, every one traced to a Wikidata record and, where shown, a Wikipedia summary (CC BY-SA) and a licensed Wikimedia Commons photo. 2 of them carry a dated net-worth estimate citing Forbes or Bloomberg; combined wealth is the sum of the low end of those estimates, the newest as of 2025. Rankings compare all 366 dates in the dataset built on 2026-09-28. Milestone ages come from dated Wikidata statements; a tilde marks year-only dates. Nothing on this page is a prediction about anyone born on April 21. Read the full methodology.
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