December 17 is the birthday of 49 notable people we've found so far, including actors, authors, scientists and historical figures, and 1 of them is a billionaire.
Alberto Alcocer Torra is a Spanish businessman who, along with his cousin Alberto Cortina, owns Alcor Holding, a patrimonial society that owns 12.5% of Grupo ACS, the largest Spanish construction company, and 21% of the waste management company, Ence.
Share of the 49 people we list, by documented field. People can belong to more than one.
Actors35% (17 people)
Authors31% (15 people)
Scientists24% (12 people)
Creators20% (10 people)
Politicians16% (8 people)
Athletes14% (7 people)
Entrepreneurs12% (6 people)
Countries
25 countries, most often United States
Citizenship as recorded on Wikidata, one country per person.
United States13 (13 people)
United Kingdom6 (6 people)
Canada3 (3 people)
France2 (2 people)
Germany2 (2 people)
India2 (2 people)
Norway2 (2 people)
Life timeline
What were people born on December 17 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.
By 25
19Markus VilligFounded Bolt (2013)
~16Martin ØdegaardJoined Norway men's national association football team (2014)
Pope Francis was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 13 March 2013 until his death in 2025. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first pope born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.
Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service (Jeon Han), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Milica Bogdanovna Jovović, known professionally as Milla Jovovich, is an American actress and former model. Her starring roles in numerous science fiction and action films led the music channel VH1 to deem her the "reigning queen of kick-butt" in 2006.
Sarah Catharine Paulson is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
PhilipRomanoPhoto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
William Pullman is an American actor. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater, he was an adjunct professor at Montana State University before deciding to pursue acting.
Elena Ternovaja, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Emmanuel "Manny" Dapidran Pacquiao Sr. is a Filipino professional boxer and former politician. Nicknamed "PacMan", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time, becoming the only eight-division world champion in boxing history.
Avito C. Dalan for the Philippine News Agency, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ramon Wilson was an English professional footballer who played as a left-back. He was a member of the England national team that won the 1966 World Cup.
Mat macwilliam at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Markus Villig is an Estonian billionaire entrepreneur and founder and CEO of global shared mobility company Bolt Technology OÜ. As of 2019, he is Europe's youngest founder of a billion dollar company (unicorn).
Friedrich Otto Schott (1851–1935) was a German chemist, glass technologist, and the inventor of borosilicate glass. Schott systematically investigated the relationship between the chemical composition of the glass and its properties.
Max Liebermann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer was an Australian media tycoon, and was considered one of Australia's most powerful media proprietors of the twentieth century.
Kwak Dong Shin is a South Korean businessman and chairman of Hanmi Semiconductor. He is among the richest people in South Korea, with Forbes estimating his net worth in December 2024 to be US$2.2 billion and ranking him the 8th richest person in the country.
Martin Ødegaard is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for and captains both Premier League club Arsenal and the Norway national team.
Claire Antonia Forlani is an English actress. She became known in the mid-1990s for her leading role in the film Mallrats, and in the Jean-Michel Basquiat 1996 biopic Basquiat. In 1998, she achieved wide recognition for starring in the fantasy romance film Meet Joe Black.
Katheryn Winnick is a Canadian actress. She is known for her starring roles in the television series Vikings (2013–2020), Wu Assassins (2019), and Big Sky (2020–2023), and her recurring role on the television series Bones (2010–2011).
Mykola Swarnyk, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Rian Craig Johnson is an American filmmaker. He made his directorial debut with the neo-noir mystery film Brick (2005), which received positive reviews and grossed nearly $4 million on a $450,000 budget.
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
John Abraham is an Indian actor and film producer who works in Hindi films. He is a recipient of one National Film Award along with four Filmfare Awards nominations. Abraham has appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list since 2017.
Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Wesley Studi is a Cherokee actor and film producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and awards throughout his career, particularly for his portrayal of Native Americans in film.
Office of the California Governor, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Heather Laurie Holden is an American-Canadian actress, producer, model, and human rights activist. She is best known for portraying Marita Covarrubias in The X-Files (1996–2002) and Andrea in AMC's The Walking Dead (2010–2013).
German Comic Con, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Yann Sommer is a Swiss professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Belgian Pro League club Club Brugge. He is known primarily for his exceptional reflexes and high agility.
Steindy (talk) 14:48, 25 November 2015 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
William Lyon Mackenzie King was the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A Liberal, he was the dominant politician in Canada from the early 1920s to the late 1940s.
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, whose posthumously published novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.
Fortier High School, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German retired actor who appeared in numerous English-language films starting in the 1980s. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Shine. In 2011, he was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear.
Smokeonthewater, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, also referred to by his initials KK, is a Turkish politician who served as the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) from 2010 to 2023. He was Leader of the Main Opposition in Turkey between 2010 and 2023.
Voice of America, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, also known by the alias Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, is a Russian army veteran and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who played a key role in the Russian annexation of Crimea, and then in the Donbas War as an organizer of militant groups in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).
Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Penelope Mary Fitzgerald was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 The Times listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Hu Shih was a Chinese academic, writer, diplomat, and politician. Hu contributed to Chinese liberalism and language reform, and was a leading advocate for the use of written vernacular Chinese. He participated in the May Fourth Movement and China's New Culture Movement.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mykola Yanovych Azarov is a Russo-Ukrainian politician who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 11 March 2010 to 27 January 2014. He was the First Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2006 to 2007.
Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933), won him critical acclaim.
Joseph Henry was an American physicist and inventor who served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution.
Henry Ulke (1821-1910), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Marius Sophus Lie was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. He also made substantial contributions to the development of algebra.
Willard Frank Libby was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology.
This page lists 49 people born on December 17, every one traced to a Wikidata record and, where shown, a Wikipedia summary (CC BY-SA) and a licensed Wikimedia Commons photo. 1 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 March 2011. 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 December 17. Read the full methodology.
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