Famous birthdays by month
Famous Birthdays in December
Who was born in December? Browse the best-known birthdays for every day of the month, then tap any date to see everyone famous born on that day.
Birthstone: Turquoise · Star signs: Sagittarius & Capricorn
The most famous December birthdays862
1642–1727Isaac Newton
English mathematician and physicist who formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and co-invented calculus
ScienceDied aged 84
View profile Photo: Godfrey Kneller · Public domain
1878–1953Joseph Stalin
Soviet dictator from the 1920s until 1953 who led the USSR through the Second World War and ruled through purges and labour camps
PoliticsWould be 147
View profile Photo: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs · Public domain
1770–1827Ludwig van Beethoven
German composer of nine symphonies, including the Fifth and the choral Ninth, who kept writing masterpieces after losing his hearing
MusicDied aged 56
View profile Photo: Joseph Karl Stieler · Public domain
1815–1852Ada Lovelace
English mathematician who wrote what is considered the first computer program, for Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine
MathematicsDied aged 36
View profile Photo: Antoine Claudet · Public domain
1936–2025Pope Francis
Argentine Jesuit who led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 as the first pope from the Americas, known for his focus on the poor
ReligionWould be 89
View profile Photo: Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service (Jeon Han) · CC BY-SA 2.0
1893–1976Mao Zedong
Communist revolutionary who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and launched the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution
LiteratureWould be 132
View profile Photo: Chen Zhengqing (1917–1966) · Public domain
b. 1984Basshunter
Swedish DJ and producer behind Eurodance hits Now You're Gone and All I Ever Wanted, both UK number ones
MusicAge 41
View profile Photo: Houlihanmartin · CC BY 3.0
1822–1895Louis Pasteur
French scientist who proved germ theory, developed vaccines for rabies and anthrax and invented pasteurisation
ScienceDied aged 72
View profile Photo: Paul Nadar · Public domain
December birthdays, day by day
- December 1
- Pablo Escobar (1949) · Colombian drug lord who led the Medellín Cartel, once one of the richest criminals in history, and was killed in 1993
- Georgy Zhukov (1896) · Soviet marshal who defended Moscow, won at Stalingrad and captured Berlin in the Second World War
- Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1792) · Russian mathematician who pioneered the development of non-Euclidean geometry
- December 2
- Britney Spears (1981) · American pop singer known as the Princess of Pop for hits such as ...Baby One More Time, Toxic and Oops!... I Did It Again
- Maria Meneghini Callas (1923) · Highly influential American-born Greek operatic soprano
- Nelly Furtado (1978) · Canadian singer-songwriter known for hits like I'm Like a Bird
- December 3
- Joseph Conrad (1857) · Polish-born British novelist and former sailor who wrote Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Nostromo in his third language
- Julianne Moore (1960) · American actress of Boogie Nights and Far from Heaven who won an Oscar for Still Alice
- Ozzy Osbourne (1948) · Lead singer of Black Sabbath and heavy metal icon
- December 4
- Francisco Franco (1892) · Spanish general who won the Spanish Civil War and ruled the country as dictator from 1939 until his death in 1975
- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875) · Bohemian-Austrian poet of the Duino Elegies, the Sonnets to Orpheus and Letters to a Young Poet
- Thomas Carlyle (1795) · Scottish historian and essayist of The French Revolution and On Heroes, a dominant voice of Victorian thought
- December 5
- Walt Disney (1901) · American animation pioneer who created Mickey Mouse, made Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and founded Disneyland
- Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927) · King of Thailand for 70 years, known as Rama IX, one of the longest-reigning monarchs in history
- Martin Van Buren (1782) · Eighth US President, the first born a US citizen, who helped build the Democratic Party and faced the Panic of 1837
- December 6
- Yoshihide Suga (1948) · Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister
- Peter Handke (1942) · Austrian novelist and playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778) · French scientist known for his work on the properties of gases
- December 7
- Noam Chomsky (1928) · American linguist who revolutionised the study of language with his theory of universal grammar and became a leading political critic
- Christina of Sweden (1626) · Queen of Sweden who famously abdicated her throne
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598) · Italian sculptor and architect who pioneered the Baroque style
- December 8
- Jim Morrison (1943) · Lead singer and poet of the Doors, the self-styled Lizard King behind Light My Fire and Riders on the Storm
- Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832) · Norwegian writer who wrote the lyrics of Norway's national anthem and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903
- Nicki Minaj (1982) · Trinidadian rapper credited with reviving mainstream female rap in the 2010s through witty lyrics, alter egos, and over 100 million records sold
- December 9
- John Milton (1608) · English poet who wrote the epic Paradise Lost after going blind, and a defender of free speech in Areopagitica
- Peter Kropotkin (1842) · Russian prince turned anarchist thinker who wrote Mutual Aid, arguing that cooperation, not just competition, drives evolution
- Kirk Douglas (1916) · Hollywood legend known for his starring role in Spartacus
Spotlight: Sonia Gandhi birthday, age and life story, from Italy to the heart of Indian politics.
- December 10
- Ada Lovelace (1815) · English mathematician who wrote what is considered the first computer program, for Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine
- Emily Dickinson (1830) · Reclusive American poet whose nearly 1,800 poems, with their dashes and slant rhymes, were mostly published after her death
- Nelly Sachs (1891) · German-Jewish poet who escaped to Sweden in 1940 and won the 1966 Nobel Prize for her poetry of Holocaust grief
- December 11
- Naguib Mahfouz (1911) · Egyptian novelist of the Cairo Trilogy who became the first Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918) · Russian writer and Gulag survivor whose One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago exposed Soviet camps
- Hector Berlioz (1803) · French Romantic composer of the Symphonie fantastique and The Damnation of Faust, a pioneer of the modern orchestra
- December 12
- Gustave Flaubert (1821) · French novelist whose Madame Bovary, tried for obscenity in 1857, set new standards for realism and precise style
- Frank Sinatra (1915) · American singer and actor nicknamed Ol' Blue Eyes, famous for My Way, who won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity
- Edvard Munch (1863) · Norwegian Expressionist painter of The Scream, whose haunting, emotional images explore anxiety, love and death
- December 13
- Taylor Swift (1989) · American singer-songwriter of story-driven hits who has won Album of the Year at the Grammys a record four times and led the record-breaking Eras Tour
- Heinrich Heine (1797) · German poet of the Book of Songs, whose lyrics were set by Schubert and Schumann, and a sharp political journalist in Paris exile
- Christopher Plummer (1929) · Canadian actor famous for his role in The Sound of Music
- December 14
- Dilma Rousseff (1947) · Former guerrilla and economist who became Brazil's first female president, serving from 2011 until her impeachment in 2016
- George VI (1895) · King of the United Kingdom who took the throne after his brother's abdication, overcame a stammer and led Britain through the Second World War
- Nostradamus (1503) · French physician and astrologer whose cryptic book of prophecies, Les Prophéties, is still studied for supposed predictions
- December 15
- L. L. Zamenhof (1859) · Polish-Jewish eye doctor who invented Esperanto in 1887, hoping a shared easy language would bring peace between peoples
- Nero (AD 37) · Roman emperor remembered for his cruelty and extravagance, the murder of his mother and blame for the Great Fire of Rome
- Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852) · French physicist who discovered radioactivity in uranium in 1896 and shared the Nobel Prize with Marie and Pierre Curie
- December 16
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770) · German composer of nine symphonies, including the Fifth and the choral Ninth, who kept writing masterpieces after losing his hearing
- Jane Austen (1775) · English novelist of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, famed for her wit and portraits of love and class
- Arthur C. Clarke (1917) · British science-fiction writer of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End who first proposed communications satellites
- December 17
- Pope Francis (1936) · Argentine Jesuit who led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 as the first pope from the Americas, known for his focus on the poor
- Humphry Davy (1778) · British chemist who invented the safety lamp for miners
- Milla Jovovich (1975) · Actress and model known for The Fifth Element and Resident Evil
- December 18
- Joseph Stalin (1878) · Soviet dictator from the 1920s until 1953 who led the USSR through the Second World War and ruled through purges and labour camps
- Steven Spielberg (1946) · American film director of Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, the most commercially successful director in history
- Brad Pitt (1963) · American actor and producer of Fight Club, Ocean's Eleven and Moneyball who won an Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- December 19
- Édith Piaf (1915) · French singer known as the Little Sparrow, whose songs La Vie en rose and Non, je ne regrette rien became timeless classics
- Leonid Brezhnev (1906) · Soviet leader for 18 years, from 1964 to 1982, whose rule saw the invasion of Czechoslovakia and an era of stagnation
- Albert Abraham Michelson (1852) · American physicist who measured the speed of light with great precision and became the first American Nobel laureate in science
- December 20
- Kylian Mbappé (1998) · French forward who won the 2018 World Cup at 19 and scored a hat-trick in the 2022 final, now playing for Real Madrid
- Abdulrazak Gurnah (1948) · Nobel Prize-winning novelist known for exploring the effects of colonialism
- Binali Yıldırım (1955) · Former Prime Minister of Turkey and Speaker of the Grand Assembly
- December 21
- Emmanuel Macron (1977)
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804) · Novelist turned Conservative prime minister who made Queen Victoria Empress of India and bought Britain's stake in the Suez Canal
- Hu Jintao (1942) · Chinese Communist Party leader and President of China from 2002 to 2012, a decade of rapid growth and the Beijing Olympics
- December 22
- Basshunter (1984) · Swedish DJ and producer behind Eurodance hits Now You're Gone and All I Ever Wanted, both UK number ones
- Giacomo Puccini (1858) · Italian opera composer of La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot, with its aria Nessun dorma
- Jean Racine (1639) · French tragic playwright of Phèdre and Andromaque, a master of classical alexandrine verse at the court of Louis XIV
- December 23
- Akihito (1933) · Emperor of Japan from 1989 to 2019 who became the first Japanese monarch in two centuries to abdicate
- Alexander I of Russia (1777) · Russian tsar who defeated Napoleon's 1812 invasion, led his army into Paris and shaped Europe at the Congress of Vienna
- Helmut Schmidt (1918) · Social Democrat chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982 who steered it through oil shocks and terrorism
- December 24
- James Prescott Joule (1818) · English physicist and brewer who showed that heat is a form of energy; the joule, the unit of energy, is named after him
- Adam Mickiewicz (1798) · Poland's national poet, author of the epic Pan Tadeusz and the drama Forefathers' Eve, a leader of European Romanticism
- Ilham Aliyev (1961) · President of Azerbaijan since 2003, succeeding his father Heydar Aliyev, who led the 2023 takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh
- December 25
- Isaac Newton (1642) · English mathematician and physicist who formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and co-invented calculus
- Justin Trudeau (1971) · Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of Canada from 2015 to 2025, son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau
- Anwar Sadat (1918) · Egyptian president who launched the 1973 war, then made peace with Israel at Camp David, won the Nobel Peace Prize and was assassinated
- December 26
- Mao Zedong (1893) · Communist revolutionary who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and launched the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution
- Charles Babbage (1791) · English mathematician who designed the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine, mechanical forerunners of the computer
- Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194) · Powerful Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily during the Middle Ages
- December 27
- Louis Pasteur (1822) · French scientist who proved germ theory, developed vaccines for rabies and anthrax and invented pasteurisation
- Marlene Dietrich (1901) · German-American actress and singer who became a star in The Blue Angel and entertained Allied troops in the Second World War
- Johannes Kepler (1571) · German astronomer who discovered the three laws of planetary motion, showing that planets travel in ellipses around the Sun
- December 28
- Woodrow Wilson (1856) · 28th US President who led America in the First World War, proposed the League of Nations and won the Nobel Peace Prize
- Linus Torvalds (1969) · Finnish-American software engineer who created the Linux kernel in 1991 and the Git version-control system
- John von Neumann (1903) · Hungarian-American mathematician who designed the architecture of modern computers, founded game theory and worked on the atomic bomb
- December 29
- Andrew Johnson (1808) · 17th US President who took office after Lincoln's assassination and became the first president to be impeached
- Jon Voight (1938) · Oscar-winning actor known for Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home
- William Ewart Gladstone (1809) · Victorian statesman who served as British Prime Minister four times
- December 30
- Rudyard Kipling (1865) · British writer whose Jungle Book stories, Indian-inspired fiction, and verse made him the youngest Nobel Literature laureate in 1907
- LeBron James (1984) · American basketball player with four NBA championships who became the league's all-time leading scorer in 2023
- Titus (AD 39) · Roman Emperor who oversaw the completion of the Colosseum
- December 31
- Henri Matisse (1869) · French artist and leader of Fauvism, famous for his bold colours, The Dance and his late paper cut-outs
- Jacques Cartier (1491) · Breton navigator who explored the St Lawrence River in the 1530s and gave Canada its name from a local word for village
- Anthony Hopkins (1937) · Welsh actor who won Oscars for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs and for The Father