Famous Athletes: Ranked by Popularity (Page 31 of 31) | Who Shares My BirthdayThe most famous athletes in history, ranked by historical popularity: sports stars with their birthdays, nationality and greatest achievements.An athlete becomes notable by doing something in sport that people keep talking about: breaking records, winning the biggest titles, or changing how a game is played. The most famous go further and become symbols of their country or their era, known well beyond the fans of their own sport.This list covers the footballers, boxers, tennis players, racing drivers, Olympians and other sportspeople in our database. We rank them by historical popularity rather than by trophies or statistics, so a sport's greatest player and its most famous player are not always the same person.Who is included: everyone in our database whose primary occupation matches this list. Each person must have an English Wikipedia article and a full date of birth recorded on Wikidata. A growing share of people also have an original profile, written to our editorial rules and marked with a Last reviewed date.Most famous athlete: Muhammad Ali. Highest historical popularity score (HPI 90.7).Most common birth month: August. 146 of 1,514 were born in August.Living vs deceased: 1,357 / 157. 90% are still living.Most common nationality: Japanese. 233 people, 15% of the list.Editor-written profiles: 81. 5% have a full original profile so far.1501. Takahagi Yojiro (1986), Japanese: Attacking midfielder who won J1 League titles with Sanfrecce Hiroshima before moving on to Albirex Niigata (S).1502. Michael Dawson (1983), British: Centre back who captained Tottenham Hotspur and earned four caps for England.1503. Manabu Saito (1990), Japanese: Winger who became a mainstay at Yokohama F. Marinos before joining Azul Claro Numazu.1504. Yusuke Minagawa (1991), Japanese: Striker who left Japanese football to play in the Malaysia Super League with Negeri Sembilan.1505. Kosuke Nakamura (1995), Japanese: Goalkeeper who came through at Kashiwa Reysol and has played for Japan's national team.1506. Jhilmar Lora (2000), Peruvian: Peruvian right-back who plays in Brazil for Novorizontino and has won caps for his national team.1507. Alysa Liu (2005), American: Figure skater who became the youngest US national champion in 2019 and won the 2025 world title.1508. Takahiro Ogihara (1991), Japanese: Defensive midfielder who helped Vissel Kobe win the J1 League title in 2023.1509. Kenyu Sugimoto (1992), Japanese: Striker who helped Cerezo Osaka win both the Emperor's Cup and the League Cup in 2017.1510. Jesús Castillo (2001), Peruvian: Defensive midfielder who plays his club football for Espérance de Tunis and has won caps for Peru.1511. Vozinha (1986), Cabo Verdean: Cape Verde goalkeeper whose saves helped the Blue Sharks reach the quarter-finals of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.1512. Chase Elliott (1995), American: NASCAR driver who won the 2020 Cup Series championship, son of Bill Elliott.1513. Serena Williams (1981), American: Her 23 Grand Slam singles crowns, won between 1999 and 2017, include seven at Wimbledon.1514. Alphonse Areola (1993), French: Goalkeeper who came through Paris Saint-Germain's academy and was in France's 2018 World Cup-winning squad.How we rank and selectRanking: people are ordered by their Historical Popularity Index (HPI) from Pantheon. HPI combines how many Wikipedia language editions have an article about a person, how many page views those articles get, how evenly the views are spread across languages and how long ago the person lived. People Pantheon does not yet cover are listed after them, ordered by our own popularity score (the number of Wikipedia language editions with an article about them).Membership: each person appears in one occupation list only, based on their primary occupation as classified by Pantheon (for example, a queen who wrote poetry is listed as royalty, not as a writer). Kings, queens, emperors, sultans and royal consorts are not listed as politicians or writers: anyone who held a monarch's office on Wikidata, and never served as a president or head of government, counts as royalty. For the few people Pantheon does not cover, we use the primary field recorded in our database.One-line summaries: each summary is an original line written for this site with AI assistance under our editorial rules, then checked against the Wikipedia introduction so no wording is copied.Statistics: every figure on this page is calculated live from our database each time the page loads, so it changes as we add people.Last reviewed: October 2026Sources: Pantheon: Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rankings, Wikidata: birth dates, death dates and occupations, Wikipedia: biographies behind our summaries and popularity scores. Who Shares My Birthday.

Takahagi Yojiro

Yusuke Minagawa

Kosuke Nakamura

Takahiro Ogihara

Jesús Castillo

Serena Williams

Alphonse Areola

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Famous Athletes

The best-known sportspeople in our archive, ranked by historical popularity.

1,514 athletes in our database, ranked by historical popularity. Page 31 of 31.

Most famous athlete

Highest historical popularity score (HPI 90.7)

Most common birth month

August

146 of 1,514 were born in August

Living vs deceased

1,357 / 157

90% are still living

Most common nationality

Japanese

233 people, 15% of the list

Editor-written profiles

81

5% have a full original profile so far

The ranked list (from #1501)

How we rank and select

Ranking: people are ordered by their Historical Popularity Index (HPI) from Pantheon. HPI combines how many Wikipedia language editions have an article about a person, how many page views those articles get, how evenly the views are spread across languages and how long ago the person lived. People Pantheon does not yet cover are listed after them, ordered by our own popularity score (the number of Wikipedia language editions with an article about them).
Membership: each person appears in one occupation list only, based on their primary occupation as classified by Pantheon (for example, a queen who wrote poetry is listed as royalty, not as a writer). Kings, queens, emperors, sultans and royal consorts are not listed as politicians or writers: anyone who held a monarch's office on Wikidata, and never served as a president or head of government, counts as royalty. For the few people Pantheon does not cover, we use the primary field recorded in our database.
One-line summaries: each summary is an original line written for this site with AI assistance under our editorial rules, then checked against the Wikipedia introduction so no wording is copied.
Statistics: every figure on this page is calculated live from our database each time the page loads, so it changes as we add people.

Further reading

Reviewed by the Who Shares My Birthday editorial team.

Last reviewed: October 2026

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