List of Famous people named Karel

Karel Gott was a Czech singer and amateur painter, considered the most successful male singer in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. He was voted the country's best male singer in the annual Český slavík national music award 42 times, most recently in 2017.

Karel Sadsuit Tubun was an Indonesian police officer who is now regarded as a National Hero of Indonesia. He was killed while on duty as a guard in the neighborhood where one of the abductions of 30 September Movement took place. He was promoted posthumously to the rank of Police Second Sub-inspector. The Indonesian frigate KRI Karel Satsuit Tubun is named after him.

Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post-World War II Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s.

Karel Čurda was an active Czech Nazi collaborator during World War II. A soldier of the Czechoslovak army in exile, he was parachuted into the protectorate in 1942 as a member of the sabotage group Out Distance. He may be most infamous for his betrayal of the Czechoslovak army agents responsible for the assassination of top Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. His rewards were 500,000 Reichsmarks and a new identity, "Karl Jerhot". He married a German woman and spent the rest of the war as a Gestapo collaborator.

Karel Svoboda was a Czech composer of popular music. He wrote music for many TV series in the 1970s.

Karel Schoeman was a South African novelist, historian, translator and man of letters. He was the author of 19 novels and numerous works of history. He was one of South Africa's most honoured authors. Schoeman wrote primarily in Afrikaans, although several of his non-fiction books were originally written in English. His novels are increasingly being translated into other languages, notably, English, French and Dutch.

Karel Willem Frederik Marie Doorman was a Dutch naval officer who during World War II commanded remnants of the short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command naval strike forces in the Battle of the Java Sea. He was killed in action when his flagship HNLMS De Ruyter was torpedoed during the battle, having chosen to go down with the ship.

Karel Husa was a Czech-born classical composer and conductor, winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Music and 1993 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. In 1954, he immigrated to the United States and became an American citizen in 1959.

Karel Komzák II was a Bohemian-born Viennese composer famous for his dances and marches. He composed the Erzherzog-Albrecht-Marsch.

Karel Kolář was a 400 metres runner from the Czech Republic, who represented Czechoslovakia. He won two medals at the European Indoor Championships and two at the 1978 European Championships. He established the Indoor World record at European Indoor Championships in Vienna.