List of Famous people born on July 17th

Walid Mohi Edine al Muallem was a Syrian diplomat and Ba'ath Party member who served as foreign minister from 2006 to 2020 and as deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2020.

William Robert "Slick" Leonard was an American professional basketball player and coach, who coached the Indiana Pacers to three American Basketball Association championships. Leonard was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

Gurbaksh Singh Chahal is an Indian-American internet entrepreneur who founded several internet advertising companies.

Ana María Oramas González-Moro is a Spanish politician affiliated to Canarian Coalition. She is member of the Congress of Deputies for Santa Cruz de Tenerife since 2007 and spokesperson for Canarian Coalition in the Mixed Group. She was also Mayor of San Cristóbal de La Laguna from 1999 to 2008.

Mehdy Metella is a French freestyle and butterfly swimmer. He was part of the freestyle and medley 4×100 m teams that won a gold and a silver medal at the 2014 European Aquatics Championships and gold and bronze at the 2015 World Championship. In both cases, he swam the butterfly leg in the medley relay.

Scott Allan Norwood is a former American football placekicker who played in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons and spent the entirety of his career with the Buffalo Bills. He also played for the Birmingham Stallions in the United States Football League (USFL). An integral part of Buffalo's offense during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Norwood kicked in the team's first two Super Bowl appearances.

Ivan Ivanovich Zatevakhin was a Red Army Lieutenant general who commanded the Soviet Airborne Forces (VDV) from 1944 to 1946.

Maria Ivanovna Arbatova, is a Russian novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, journalist, talkshow host, politician, and one of Russia's most widely known feminists in the 1990s. When growing up, she was already showing strong controversial ideologies, for instance, she refused to join the Young Communist League, for she preferred to be "a hippy". She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Moscow State University, in the Dramatic Arts division of the Gorky Literary Institute, and underwent training in psychoanalysis. She had to leave state university of Moscow "due to ideological conflicts." When she was 19, she became a mother of twins, which complicated her educational processes. She continued studying at the Maxim Gorky Literature institute. After finishing her studies, Maria published some prose and poetry works, however she returned to writing drama, as she claims it is more natural expression for her than other genres. In the pre-perestroika years, the years before 1985, her literary works were banned by censorship. Before glasnost and perestroika, the political program of restructuring and openness of Michail Gorbatsjov, Arbatova had just one play staged, a play that was commissioned. An example of a play that was censored is the play called "Equitation with two knowns". It was banned by the ministry of culture for 10 years. The play is about a female gynecologist performing abortions. The play was misinterpreted as a statement of good or bad of abortion. However the purpose of the play is to bring up the unfair share of responsibility for birth control and child-raising. Nowadays Arbatova is a member of the Moscow Writer's Union and the Union of Theatrical Workers of Russia. She is the author of fourteen plays staged in Russia and abroad, twenty books, and numerous articles in newspapers and periodicals. She has received multiple accolades for her literary and public achievements.

Shou Wan Por, known professionally as Robin Shou, is a Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist and stuntman. He is known for roles such as Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat film series, Gobei in Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), Gen in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), and 14K in the Death Race films (2008-2013). Shou was also a Hong Kong action star in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has appeared in about 40 movies during his Hong Kong career before he entered Hollywood in 1994.

Lucio C. Tan Sr. is a Filipino billionaire businessman and educator with interests in banking, airline, liquor, tobacco, real estate industries, beverages, and education. In 2013, Forbes magazine listed him as the second richest billionaire from the Philippines with a net worth of $7.5 billion.