List of Famous people born in Serbia
Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic is a Serbian professional tennis player. He is currently ranked as world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Djokovic has been No. 1 for 306 weeks, and has finished as year-end No. 1 on six occasions, an Open Era record shared with Pete Sampras. Djokovic has won 17 Grand Slam men's singles titles, including a record eight Australian Open titles. He is the only player to win all of the elite tournaments on the modern men's professional circuit. – that is, all four Grand Slam tournaments, all nine ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, and the ATP Finals. In particular, he is also the only player to complete the career Golden Masters, which he has done twice. Overall, he has won 81 ATP singles titles, including a record 36 Masters events.
Nikola Jokić
Nikola Jokić is a Serbian professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the Serbian national team. Standing at 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m), he plays in the center position.
Stevan Jelovac
Stevan Jelovac was a Serbian professional basketball player.
Xherdan Shaqiri
Xherdan Shaqiri is a Swiss professional footballer who plays as a winger for Premier League club Liverpool and the Switzerland national team.
Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist, philanthropist, writer, and filmmaker. Her work explores body art, endurance art and feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Being active for over four decades, Abramović refers to herself as the "grandmother of performance art". She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body". In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art.
Dušan Vlahović
Dušan Vlahović is a Serbian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Fiorentina and the Serbia national team.
Dragan Stojković
Dragan Stojković, also known under the nickname Piksi (Пикси), is a Serbian former footballer who played as a midfielder.
Nemanja Bjelica
Nemanja Bjelica is a Serbian professional basketball player for the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the senior Serbian national basketball team internationally. Bjelica was an All-Euroleague First Team selection as well as the Euroleague MVP in 2015. Bjelica started his NBA career as a 27-year-old rookie which he signed in 2015 and previously played for the Timberwolves for 3 seasons before signing with the Kings in 2018 offseason.
Luka Jović
Luka Jović is a Serbian professional footballer who plays as a striker for German club Eintracht Frankfurt, on loan from Real Madrid, and the Serbia national team.
Mileva Marić
Mileva Marić, sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein or Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn, was a Serbian physicist and mathematician and the first wife of Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919. She was the only woman among Einstein's fellow students at Zürich Polytechnic and was the second woman to finish a full program of study at the Department of Mathematics and Physics. Marić and Einstein were collaborators and lovers and had a daughter Lieserl in 1902, whose fate is unknown. They later had two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard.
Boban Marjanović
Boban Marjanović is a Serbian professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the Serbian national basketball team in international competitions. At 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) tall, he is the second tallest active player in the NBA after Tacko Fall. In 2015, he earned an All-EuroLeague First Team selection.
Merima Njegomir
Merima Kurtiš, known professionally as Merima Njegomir, was a Serbian folk and sevdah singer. She began her career singing many interpretations of popular Bosnian folk songs, such as "Moj dilbere" and "Sejdefu majka buđaše", which gained her popularity across Serbia and former Yugoslavia. Her career, spanning over four decades, includes 24 albums, and songs in over 20 languages, such as Hungarian, Hebrew, Italian, Greek and Turkish. Her father was a Macedonian Albanian from Ohrid, while her mother was a Bosniak from Bijeljina.
Monica Seles
Monica Seles is a retired professional tennis player, who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. She was born and raised in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia to an ethnic Hungarian family. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1994 and also received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007. A former world no. 1, she won nine Grand Slam singles titles, eight of them as a teenager while representing Yugoslavia, and the final one while representing the United States.
Ana Ivanovic
Ana Schweinsteiger, professionally known by her birth name Ana Ivanovic, is a Serbian retired professional tennis player. She was ranked No. 1 in the world in 2008, after she had defeated Dinara Safina to win the 2008 French Open, and held the top ranking for a total of 12 weeks. She was also the runner-up at the 2007 French Open and the 2008 Australian Open, losing to Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova respectively. She qualified for the annual WTA Tour Championships three times, in 2007, 2008 and 2014 and won the year-end WTA Tournament of Champions twice, in 2010 and 2011.
Miloš Biković
Miloš Biković, is a Serbian actor and producer.
Dušan Tadić
Dušan Tadić is a Serbian professional footballer who plays for and captains Dutch club Ajax and the Serbia national team.
Nemanja Matić
Nemanja Matić is a Serbian professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Premier League club Manchester United. Starting his career as an attacking midfielder, Matić shifted to a defensive midfielder during his spell at Benfica. He is known for his consistent performances on the pitch and his combative style of play.
Vesna Vulović
Vesna Vulović was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 m. She was the sole survivor after a briefcase bomb exploded in the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. The Yugoslav authorities suspected that Croatian nationalists were to blame, but no one was ever arrested.
Constantine the Great
Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from 306 to 337. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea, he was the son of Flavius Constantius, an Illyrian army officer who became one of the four emperors of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was Greek and of low birth. Constantine served with distinction under emperors Diocletian and Galerius campaigning in the eastern provinces against barbarians and the Persians, before being recalled west in 305 to fight under his father in Britain. After his father's death in 306, Constantine was acclaimed as emperor by the army at Eboracum (York). He emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of the Roman Empire by 324.
Bogdan Bogdanović
Bogdan Bogdanović is a Serbian professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The swingman also represents the Serbian national basketball team internationally.