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

Marina Hegering is a German footballer. She currently plays as a defender for Bayern Munich and the German national team.

Johannes "Hannes" Linßen is a German former football player, coach and manager.

Boris Schommers is a German football manager who last managed 1. FC Kaiserslautern.

Danny Latza is a German footballer who currently plays as a midfielder for Mainz 05.

Sabine Moussier is a German-Mexican actress who is best known for her villainous roles in Televisa's telenovelas, such as El privilegio de amar, Entre el amor y el odio, La madrastra, Amar sin límites, Piel de otoño, Amor sin maquillaje, Las tontas no van al cielo, Mi pecado, Abismo de pasión, La malquerida, Que te perdone Dios, Sueño de amor y Me declaro culpable. She starred as the protagonist in Ni contigo ni sin ti.

Christian Petzold is a German film director.

Sebastian Thrun is an entrepreneur, educator, and computer scientist from Germany. He is CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, and chairman and co-founder of Udacity. Before that, he was a Google VP and Fellow, a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, and before that at Carnegie Mellon University. At Google, he founded Google X and Google's self-driving car team. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and at Georgia Tech.

Kevin Vogt is a German professional footballer who plays as a centre back and midfielder for 1899 Hoffenheim.

Hans Leyendecker is a German journalist. He writes for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and is one of Germany's best known investigative journalists.

Wolfgang Wendland is a German musician, actor, film producer and politician.