February 17 is the birthday of 53 notable people we've found so far, including actors, authors, creators and entrepreneurs, and 3 of them are billionaires.
Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang is a Taiwanese and American business executive and electrical engineer who is the founder, president, and CEO of Nvidia, the world's most valuable company.
Brian Acton is an American business executive and computer programmer serving as the executive chairperson of Signal Technology Foundation, which he co-founded with Moxie Marlinspike in 2018. Acton also serves as interim chief executive officer (CEO) of Signal Messenger LLC.
Share of the 53 people we list, by documented field. People can belong to more than one.
Actors36% (19 people)
Authors28% (15 people)
Creators25% (13 people)
Entrepreneurs21% (11 people)
Musicians19% (10 people)
Athletes11% (6 people)
Scientists11% (6 people)
Countries
24 countries, most often United States
Citizenship as recorded on Wikidata, one country per person.
United States23 (23 people)
United Kingdom5 (5 people)
France2 (2 people)
Ireland2 (2 people)
Spain2 (2 people)
Argentina1 (1 people)
Australia1 (1 people)
Life timeline
What were people born on February 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
~22Michael JordanReceived the NBA Rookie of the Year Award (1985)
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. Born in New York City, she is a great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton.
Denise Lee Richards is an American actress, model and television personality. She rose to prominence with roles in the science fiction film Starship Troopers (1997), the erotic thriller film Wild Things (1998) and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999).
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his leading performances in 500 Days of Summer (2009) and 50/50 (2011).
Colleen Sturtevant, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Billie Joe Armstrong is an American musician, songwriter and actor. He is best known for being the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Green Day, which he co-founded with Mike Dirnt in 1987.
Sven-Sebastian Sajak (Sven0705), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Mo Yan, born Guan Moye, is a Chinese writer. He gained attention for his 1984 novella, A Transparent Radish, and rose to international fame for his 1986 novel Red Sorghum, the first two parts of which were adapted into the Golden Bear-winning film Red Sorghum (1988).
Johannes Kolfhaus, Gymn. Marienthal, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Michael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is best known for making big-budget high-concept action films with fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals, and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depictions of explosions.
Romina Espinosa at http://www.rominaespinosa.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Marc Márquez Alentà is a Spanish Grand Prix motorcycle road racer who races for the Ducati Lenovo Team in MotoGP. He previously raced for Honda's factory team from 2013 to 2023, and for the Ducati satellite team Gresini Racing in 2024.
Thomas John Watson Sr. was an American businessman who was the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's management style and corporate culture from John Henry Patterson's training at NCR.
The original uploader was Paul C. Lasewicz at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dositej Obradović was a Serbian writer, philosopher, pedagogue, translator, educational reformer, linguist and the first minister of education of Serbia.
Anastas Jovanović, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Bonnie Francesca Wright is an English actress, filmmaker, and environmental activist. She is best known for her role as Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter film series.
Brenda Fricker was an Irish actress whose career spanned six decades on stage and screen. She appeared in more than 30 films and television productions.
Brenda_Fricker_(1990).jpg: Photo by Alan Light derivative work: Wildhartlivie (talk), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Rene Marie Russo is an American actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model in the 1970s, appearing on magazine covers such as Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Oliver Taylor Hawkins was an American musician who was the drummer and a vocalist of the rock band Foo Fighters, sharing vocals with Dave Grohl. He joined the band in 1997, and remained the band's drummer until his death in March 2022.
Raphael Pour-Hashemi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dominic Haakon Myrtvedt Purcell is an Australian actor. He is best known as Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break, Mick Rory / Heat Wave in The Flash (2014–16) and Legends of Tomorrow (2016–21), and Drake / Dracula in Blade: Trinity (2004).
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Natascha Maria Kampusch is an Austrian author and former talk show host. At the age of 10, on 2 March 1998, she was abducted and held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper, Wolfgang Přiklopil, for more than eight years, until she escaped on 23 August 2006.
C.Stadler/Bwag, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. was an American actor. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show, titled Mark Twain Tonight!, that he developed while studying at Denison University.
NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
James Nathaniel Brown was an American professional football player, civil rights activist, and actor. He played as a fullback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 to 1965.
Kahn's Weiners, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Daniel Lawrence Whitney, known professionally as Larry the Cable Guy, is an American stand-up comedian, actor and former radio personality. He was one of the members of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, a comedy troupe which included Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Jeff Foxworthy.
Aja2104; modified by User:Kubigula, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Madison Keys is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 5 by the WTA. Keys has won eleven career singles titles, including a Major at the 2025 Australian Open. She was also a finalist at the 2017 US Open.
Adriano Leite Ribeiro is a Brazilian former professional footballer. He had four prolific seasons in Italy with Italian clubs Parma and Inter Milan, being considered one of the best strikers in the world during this time and earning the nickname of L'Imperatore.
Original: Alex Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil Derivative work: Danyele, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sir Alan Arthur Bates was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, when he appeared in films ranging from Whistle Down the Wind to the kitchen sink drama A Kind of Loving.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Loreena McKennitt is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who writes, records, and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences. McKennitt is known for her refined and clear soprano vocals.
Małgorzata Skibińska, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
John Arthur Kennedy was an American actor, known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway.
ABC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec was a French medical doctor and musician. His skill at carving his own wooden flutes led him to invent the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker. He pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Hans Joachim Morgenthau was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations.
Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Lieutenant-General Mori Rintarō, known by his pen name Mori Ōgai, was a Japanese Army Surgeon general officer, translator, novelist, poet and father of famed author Mari Mori.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sadegh Hedayat was an Iranian writer, translator, satirist, and poet. Best known for his novel The Blind Owl, he was one of the earliest Iranian writers to adopt literary modernism in their career. He is widely considered to be the father of the atheist movement in Iran.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida, better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, was a Spanish Romantic poet and writer, also a playwright, literary columnist, and talented in drawing.
Valeriano Bécquer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Otto Stern was a German–American experimental physicist. He is the second most nominated person for a Nobel Prize, with 82 nominations during the years 1925–1945.
Nobelprize.org, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Cara Cavell Black is a Zimbabwean former professional tennis player. Black was primarily a doubles specialist, winning 60 WTA Tour and 11 ITF doubles titles. A former doubles world No. 1, she won ten major titles.
This page lists 53 people born on February 17, every one traced to a Wikidata record and, where shown, a Wikipedia summary (CC BY-SA) and a licensed Wikimedia Commons photo. 3 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 2026. 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 February 17. Read the full methodology.
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