List of Famous people born in California, United States of America

Sam Kendricks is an American pole vaulter. He is a three-time indoor and six-time outdoor national champion (2014–2019), the 2016 Olympics bronze medalist, and the 2017 World Champion. In 2019, Kendricks set the American pole vault record at 6.06 m, tying him with Steve Hooker for fourth all time. He later won the gold medal at the World Championships in Doha.

Justine Wong-Orantes is an American volleyball player of Chinese and Mexican descent.

Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently the artistic director of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida. He is also Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.

James William Ross is an American professional wrestling commentator and talent relations executive, currently signed with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a commentator, analyst and senior advisor. Ross is best known for a long and distinguished career as a play-by-play commentator for the WWE. He is known affectionately as Good ol' JR and has been labeled as the greatest wrestling commentator of all time.

Roy Lee "Rocky" Dennis was an American boy who had craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, an extremely rare sclerotic bone disorder. The condition usually results in neurological disorders and death during childhood or teenage years. His life was the basis for the 1985 drama film Mask.

Caprice A. Crane is an American novelist, screenwriter and television writer/producer.

Christopher Michael Langan is an American horse rancher and autodidact who has been reported to score very highly on IQ tests. Langan's IQ was estimated on ABC's 20/20 to be between 195 and 210, and he has been described by some journalists as "the smartest man in America" or "in the world".

Suzanne Eaton was an American scientist and professor of molecular biology at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

Robert Leroy Mercer is an American hedge fund manager, former principal investor in the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica, and computer scientist. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissance Technologies.

Jaime Jaquez Jr. is a Mexican-American college basketball player for the UCLA Bruins of the Pac-12 Conference. As a sophomore in 2021, he earned second-team all-conference honors and was named to the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team.