List of Famous people born in May

Ibrahim Yaqoub El Zakzaky to a Fulani mallawa clan in Zaria, is an imprisoned outspoken and prominent Shi'a Muslim leader in Nigeria. He is the head of Nigeria's Islamic Movement, which he founded in the late 1970s, when a student at Ahmadu Bello University, and began propagating Shia Islam around 1979, at the time of the Iranian revolution—which saw Iran's monarchy overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. Zakzaky believed that the establishment of a republic along similar religious lines in Nigeria would be feasible. He has been detained several times due to accusations of civil disobedience or recalcitrance under military regimes in Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s, and is still viewed with suspicion or as a threat by Nigerian authorities. In December 2015, the Nigerian Army raided his residence in Zaria, seriously injured him, and killed hundreds of his followers; since then, he has remained under state detention in the nation's capital pending his release, which was ordered in late 2016. In 2019, a court in Kaduna state granted him and his wife bail to seek treatment abroad but they returned from India after 3 days on the premises of unfair treatment and tough restrictions by security operatives deployed to the medical facility.

Kuroi Senji is a pen name of Osabe Shunjirō, Japanese author of fiction and essays.

Yoshiaki Hatakeda is a Japanese former gymnast who competed in the 1992 Summer Olympics and in the 1996 Summer Olympics.

John Duncan Vaughan Campbell, 5th Earl Cawdor, TD, styled Viscount Emlyn between 1911 and 1914, was a Scots-Welsh nobleman.

Servílio Sebastião de Oliveira is a former Brazilian Olympic champion. In 1968, he became the first Brazilian boxer ever to win Olympic medal. It occurred at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. An eye injury forced his retirement from professional boxing. He made a comeback and won two bouts in 1977, then re-retired with a record of 19–0.

Hélène Joy is an Australian-Canadian television, stage and film actress originally from Perth, Western Australia. She is best known for her work in television series Durham County and Murdoch Mysteries.