List of Famous people born in Romania

Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat. He was one of the key figures during the 1848 revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia. He fought for the unification of the Romanian Principalities, writing "Hora Unirii" in 1856 and giving up his candidacy for the title of prince of Moldavia, in favor of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. He became the first minister of foreign affairs of Romania and was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy. Alecsandri was a prolific writer, contributing to Romanian literature with poetry, prose, several plays, and collections of Romanian folklore, being consider, alongside Mihai Eminescu, which admired and was inspired by the writings of Alecsandri, as one of the most important Romanian writers in the second half of the 19th century.

Dimitrije "Dositej" Obradović was a Serbian writer, philosopher, dramatist, librettist, translator, linguist, traveler, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia. An influential protagonist of the Serbian national and cultural renaissance, he advocated Enlightenment and rationalist ideas while remaining a Serbian patriot and an adherent of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Founder of modern Serbian literature, he is commonly referred to by his mononym, first name alone. He became a monk in the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Hopovo, in the Syrmia region, and acquired the name Dositej (Dositheus). He translated many European classics, including Aesop's Fables, into Serbian.

Samson Fainsilber was a Romanian-born French film actor. During his career he appeared in around sixty films and television series. He featured in the 1933 historical drama Roger la Honte.

Ion Ghica was a Romanian revolutionary, mathematician, diplomat and politician, who was Prime Minister of Romania five times. He was a full member of the Romanian Academy and its president many times. He was the older brother and associate of Pantazi Ghica, a prolific writer and politician.

Ion Mihai Pacepa was a two-star general in the Securitate, the secret police of Communist Romania, who defected to the United States in July 1978 following President Jimmy Carter's approval of his request for political asylum. He was the highest-ranking defector from the former Eastern Bloc. At the time of his defection, Pacepa simultaneously had the rank of advisor to President Nicolae Ceauşescu, acting chief of his foreign intelligence service and a state secretary of Romania's Ministry of Interior.

George Bariț, was a Romanian historian, philologist, playwright, politician, businessman and journalist, the founder of the Romanian language press in Transylvania.

Nicolae Ionescu was a Romanian politician, jurist and publicist, brother of the agronomist Ion Ionescu de la Brad. He was leader of the Free and Independent Faction, serving several terms in Chamber and Senate, most often as a representative of Roman County, and was helped to establish several liberal coalitions in the 1860s and '70s. His career peaked just before the Romanian War of Independence, when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of Ion Brătianu. Ionescu ended his career in politics with the National Liberal Party. A professor of law and a rector of Iași University, he was also one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy.

David Wechsler was a Romanian-American psychologist. He developed well-known intelligence scales, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Wechsler as the 51st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Nicolae Grigorescu was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting.

Traian Lalescu was a Romanian mathematician. His main focus was on integral equations and he contributed to work in the areas of functional equations, trigonometric series, mathematical physics, geometry, mechanics, algebra, and the history of mathematics.