List of Famous people named Karl

Karl Friedrich May was a German author. He is best known for his 19-th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main protagonists and in the Orient and Middle East with fictional characters Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar.

Karl Peglau was a German traffic psychologist who invented the iconic Ampelmännchen traffic symbols used in the former East Germany in 1961. The Ampelmännchen depicts a symbolic person on the red and green pedestrian traffic lights.

Karl Malden was an American actor. He was primarily a character actor, who according to Robert Berkvist, "for more than 60 years brought an intelligent intensity and a homespun authenticity to roles in theater, film, and television", especially in such classic films as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – for which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor – On the Waterfront (1954), Pollyanna (1960), and One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Malden also played in high-profile Hollywood films such as Baby Doll (1956), The Hanging Tree (1959), How the West Was Won (1962), Gypsy (1962), and Patton (1970).

Karl Lehmann was a German Cardinal prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Mainz from 1983 to 2016, being elevated to Cardinal in 2001. He also served as Chairman of the Conference of the German Bishops from 1987 to 2008, being considered one of the most influential prelates in Germany in these years and a leading proponent of liberal stances within the Church. Before he became a bishop, he worked as professor of theology at the University of Mainz and the University of Freiburg.

Karl Wallenda was a German-American high wire artist and founder of The Flying Wallendas, a daredevil circus act which performed dangerous stunts, often without a safety net. He was the great-grandfather of current performer Nik Wallenda.

Charles Nessler was the inventor of the permanent wave.

Karl Christian Rove is an American Republican political consultant, policy advisor and lobbyist. He was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation on August 31, 2007. He has also headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives.

Karl Bushby is a British ex-paratrooper, walking adventurer and author, currently attempting to be the first person to completely walk an unbroken path around the world. Bushby's trek is known as the Goliath Expedition.

Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider (born 11 July 1940, in Hütten bei Gellin, Province of Pomerania, Germany is a Professor Emeritus in Public Law at University of Erlangen in Nuremberg, Germany.

Karl Lueger was an Austrian politician, mayor of Vienna, and leader and founder of the Austrian Christian Social Party. He is credited with the transformation of the city of Vienna into a modern city. The populist and antisemitic politics of his Christian Social Party are sometimes viewed as a model for Adolf Hitler's Nazism.