List of Famous people born in Syria

Suheir al-Atassi is the leading female secular activist in the Syrian opposition, and co-vice-president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces between November 2012 and December 2013. She has been called the "Lady of the Revolution" and is widely respected in secular and intellectual circles within the Syrian opposition structure. She had previously run the media wing of the banned Jamal Atassi Forum, which was named after her father, a founding member of the Ba'ath Party who later left and founded the Democratic Arab Socialist Union.

Nabil Maleh was a Syrian film director, screenwriter, producer, painter and poet; he is thought to be a father of Syrian cinema. Nabil has published more than 1,000 articles short stories, essays and poems. He is the writer and director of 120 short, experimental and documentary works and 12 feature-length films including The Extras and The Leopard. He has more than 60 awards at international film festivals, including several lifetime achievement awards. Several of his films are in the curriculum of international film schools and he has taught film direction, acting, writing and aesthetics at many universities, centers and associations, including the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California in Los Angeles.

Nizar Hamed Mahrous, known as Abu Hamed, is a Syrian football manager and former player who is the manager of the Syria national team.

Wafa Sultan is a Syrian-American medical doctor, writer, and critic of Islam.

Ayman Hakeem is a Syrian football coach who last managed the Syria national football team.

Riad Seif is a Syrian political dissident and prominent businessman who founded and led the Forum for National Dialogue. Seif was elected to the Parliament of Syria in 1994 as an independent and again in 1998. For several years he owned an Adidas franchise in Damascus.

Ahmed Majdalani is a Palestinian politician, university professor and researcher. A former Palestinian government minister, he currently serves as Secretary-General of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) and is a senior member of the PLO Executive Committee which is considered the highest political level in Palestine

Damascius, known as "the last of the Neoplatonists," was the last scholarch of the School of Athens. He was one of the pagan philosophers persecuted by Emperor Justinian I in the early 6th century AD, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Persian court, before being allowed back into the Empire. His surviving works consist of three commentaries on the works of Plato, and a metaphysical text entitled Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles.