List of Famous people born in Iwate Prefecture, Japan

Michiko Tomabechi is a Japanese curler.

Yu Suzuki is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. He has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimensional sprite/texture-scaling games such as Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run, and After Burner, and pioneering polygonal 3D games such as Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, which are credited with popularizing 3D graphics in video games, as well as the critically acclaimed Shenmue series As a hardware engineer, he led the development of various arcade system boards, including the Sega Space Harrier, Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3, and was involved in the technical development of the Dreamcast console and its corresponding NAOMI arcade hardware.

Masato Hirano is a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator from Iwate Prefecture who works for Aoni Production. Among his other roles, he has performed the characters Ippon-Matsu and Gorousei, Zaku and Kinnikuman Big Body.

Kin Endate is a Japanese amateur astronomer who has discovered hundreds of asteroids, most of them in collaboration with Kazuro Watanabe, placing him among the most prolific discoverers of minor planets.

Shinkichi Kikuchi is a former Japanese football player. He played for Japan national team. His younger brother Toshimi is also a former footballer.

Sayaka Nakaya is a Japanese voice actress and former member of the Japanese idol girl group AKB48. She is from Iwate. While with AKB48 she was a member of the subunit No Name. Her biggest role as a voice actress was as the title character Chitose Sakuraba in the anime series Chitose Get You!!.