List of Famous people born in Iran

Lieutenant General Nader Jahanbani was an Iranian general, distinguished fighter pilot of Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) and the deputy chief of the IIAF under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Despite being executed in 1979 by Islamic Revolutionaries, he is widely lauded as the "father of the Iranian Air Force" along with general Mohammad Khatami and general Amir Hossein Rabii, for modernizing the Air Force to become a potent and powerful force whose advanced equipment and training they acquired for Iran, such as the F-14 Tomcat, would save Iran's crucial infrastructure during the Iran–Iraq War. He was the Leader of the Golden Crown, the first and national aerobatics display Iranian team. He is nicknamed the "blue eyed general of Iran". By many accounts, he is considered one of the best and most capable pilots of its time.

Astyages was the last king of the Median Empire, r. 585–550 BC, the son of Cyaxares; he was dethroned in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great. His name derives from the Old Iranian Rishti Vaiga, which means "swinging the spear, lance-hurler". In the inscriptions of Nabonidus, the name is written Ishtuvegu.

Abdol Aziz Farmanfarmaian was an Iranian architect, offspring of Iranian nobleman Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma and a member of the Qajar dynasty of Iran.

Zahra Rahnavard is an Iranian academic, artist and politician. Rahnavard is a university professor, artist, and crusading intellectual who had been under house arrest from February 2011 to May 2018. In 2009, Foreign Policy magazine named her one of the world's most distinguished thinkers. She is the wife of former Iran Prime Minister Mir Hussein Musavi. In part of her work, she has underlined the need for men to respect the laws of hijab in the same way as women, as well as a general activist for women's rights in the middle east.

Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, also spelled Shariat-Madari, was an Iranian Grand Ayatollah. He favoured the traditional Shiite practice of keeping clerics away from governmental positions and was a critic of Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, denouncing the taking hostage of diplomats at the US embassy in Tehran. In 1982 he was accused of being part of a plot to bomb Khomeini's home and to overthrow the Islamic republic, and he remained under house arrest until his death in 1986. His followers also opposed Ruhollah Khomeini.

Françoise Gisou van der Goot is a Swiss-Dutch cell biologist. She is a professor and the Vice President for Responsible Transformation at EPFL.

Arsalan Kazemi Naeini is an Iranian professional basketball player for Chemidor Qom of the Iranian Basketball Super League. He played college basketball for the Oregon Ducks and the Rice Owls basketball teams. He was the 54th overall pick in the 2013 NBA draft by the Washington Wizards, becoming the first Iranian to be drafted into the league. His rights were later traded to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Amin Zendegani is an Iranian actor who started as king Solomon in the film The Kingdom of Solomon. He also starred in the Persian series Mukhtarnameh as Muslim ibn Aqeel.

Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy is an Iranian actress. Her best-known work outside of Iran is probably The Circle, which has won several awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000, but is banned in Iran.