List of Famous people named Jean

Jean Buridan was an influential 14th century French philosopher.

Jean de Labadie was a 17th-century French Pietist. Originally a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, he became a member of the Reformed Church in 1650, before founding the community which became known as the Labadists in 1669. At its height the movement numbered around 600 with thousands of adherents further afield. It attracted some notable female converts such as the famed poet and scholar, Anna Maria van Schurman, and the entomological artist Maria Merian.

Jean Evelyn Nidetch was an American business entrepreneur who was the founder of the Weight Watchers organization.

Jean Leguay was second in command in the French National Police during the Nazi Occupation of France. He was complicit in the 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris and their deportation from France to Nazi extermination camps, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, both adults and children.

Jean Gordon, Countess of Bothwell was a wealthy Scottish noblewoman and the second wife of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. He became, after his divorce from Lady Jean, the third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. Lady Jean herself had a total of three husbands. Upon her second marriage, she became the Countess of Sutherland.

Jean Baptiste Perrin was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids, verified Albert Einstein’s explanation of this phenomenon and thereby confirmed the atomic nature of matter. For this achievement he was honoured with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1926.

Jean de Chelles was a master mason and sculptor who was one of the architects at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. On the exterior wall of the south transept a stone plaque is signed Johanne Magistro and dated February 1257, documenting the initiation of alterations to the transept and its portal. On his death in 1265 he was succeeded by Master Pierre de Montreuil.

Jean Desbouvrie was a French amateur bird trainer who believed that swallows could be put to use for military communications. During the late 19th century Desbouvrie persuaded the government of France to conduct a study on the feasibility of using swallows as messengers. His early demonstrations showed that swallows could exhibit homing behavior and that when they did so they flew much faster than homing pigeons. Desbouvrie also succeeded in curbing the birds' natural migratory behavior. After obtaining authorization from the government for follow-up testing, Desbouvrie delayed and did not follow through with rigorous experimentation.

Jean Maran was a politician from Martinique who served in the French National Assembly from 1986 to 1988. He was mayor of the city of Sainte-Luce from 21 March 1965 to 1 July 1990, general councilor from 1964 to 1994, regional councilor from 1983 to 1985, and deputy for Martinique from 16 March 1986 to 14 May 1988, at the end of the legislature. He was also president of the urban community SIVOM SUD and of the association of mayors of Martinique from 1977 to 1990. He was born in Riviere-Pilote, Martinique. He died at age 101 on 9 May 2021 in Fort-de-France.