List of Famous people born in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Frank Plasberg is a German journalist and television presenter.

Alexander von der Groeben is a German judoka. He competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics and the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Richard Oetker is a German billionaire heir and businessman, who in 2010 became CEO of multinational food processing company Dr. Oetker. In 1976 he was kidnapped by Dieter Zlof, a Slovene-born mechanic, and only released after a substantial ransom was paid.

Ralf Rudolf Moeller is a German actor and former competitive bodybuilder. He is known for his roles of Brick Bardo in Cyborg, Kjartan in The Viking Sagas, the title character in the television show Conan the Adventurer, Hagen in Gladiator, Thorak in The Scorpion King and Ulfar in Pathfinder.

Hildegard Wortmann is a German business executive who has been the first female member of the Board of Management of Audi since 1 July 2019, where she is responsible for marketing and sales.

Katarina Barley is a German politician and lawyer who has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. She served as Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection and as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in the fourth Cabinet of Angela Merkel. Prior to that, she had served as acting Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 28 September 2017, both until 14 March 2018.

Hendrik Snoek a former German show jumper who later became a businessman. Snoek was heir to a supermarket fortune. He was kidnapped on 3 November 1976 and held for a DM 5,000,000 ransom. He was discovered by a lorry driver, tied up under a motorway bridge, after the ransom was paid by his father. A considerable amount of the ransom was eventually recovered. He was a founder of the Westphalian Horse Museum in Münster.

Tom Astor is a German singer and composer. He is noted for his extensive country and western recordings. He has worked with Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, John Denver, The Bellamy Brothers, Willie Nelson, Billy Ray Cyrus, George Jones, Wanda Jackson and Charlie McCoy among others.

Heinz Faßmann is an Austrian politician and professor of human geography and land-use planning at the University of Vienna. He is serving as the Minister of Education in the Second Kurz cabinet in the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and served in the same capacity from December 2017 to June 2019. Faßmann is considered to be aligned with the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) but holds no formal party membership or affiliation.

Nazan Eckes is a German television personality.