List of dentists

Farmer at the dentist, Johann Liss, c. 1616–17

This is a list of dentists who have gained a degree of notability, particularly with regard to the history of those in the field.

Real-life dentists

• Harold Albrecht – Conservative Party of Canada politician
• Bill Allen – former president of the British Dental Association.
• Edward Angle – Father of Orthodontics
• Steve Arlin – Dentist after playing Major League Baseball
• Gunadasa Amarasekara – Sinhala language writer
• Amalia Assur (1803–1889) first woman dentist in Sweden and possibly Europe.
• Franz Bäke – Nazi Panzer ace.
• Henryka Bartnicka-Tajchert – Member of the Anti-Nazi Polish resistance who became a dentist
• Charles Spence Bate – An authority on crustaceans, five species are named for him
• William George Beers – Established the Montreal Lacrosse Club and the Canada Journal of Dental Science
• Samuel Bemis – Photography pioneer who became an eccentric recluse
• Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow – Former head of the dentistry center of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry under Saparmurat Niyazov, currently President of Turkmenistan
• Paul Beresford – Conservative Party (UK) politician.
• Greene Vardiman Black – invented a foot-driven dental drill and is classed as a father of modern dentistry
• Robert Blake – He wrote, An Essay on the Structure and Formation of the Teeth in Man and Various Animals.
• Jan Boubli – French professional poker player and retired dentist
• Allan G. Brodie – American dentist who established the Prize Essay Award to promote research
• Edgar Buchanan – Primarily known for his later career as an actor in shows like Petticoat Junction
• Martin van Butchell – Eccentric who put his wife's head on display at his home/practice after her death
• Donald J. Butz – U.S. Air Force Major General
• Billy Cannon
• Georg Carabelli – Court dentist to the Austrian Emperor who founded a clinic in the University of Vienna
• Gerald Cardinale – Republican Party (United States) politician with a dental office in Fort Lee, New Jersey
• James Carlisle – Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda and member of the British Dental Association
• Steve Christian – One of the Pitcairn Island sex abusers who did dentistry and was Mayor
• Dipak Chudasama – Cricketer called "The Doc" because he's a qualified dentist
• Antoni Cieszyński – Polish head of a Stomatology Institute who was killed in the Massacre of Lwów professors
• Bernard J. Cigrand – Possibly the "Father of Flag Day"
• Barney Clark – First recipient of the Jarvik 7 artificial heart
• Henry D. Cogswell – Designed a method of securing dental plates, and in the temperance movement
• Frederick J. Conboy – A secretary of the Ontario Dental Association and later mayor of Toronto
• Dan Crane – American Dentist/politician. Republican Party
• Miles Henry Davis – Ran for a seat on the State Legislature, NAACP member, and father to Miles Davis
• Bessie Delany – Of some note as the second black woman to be granted a dentistry license in New York state
• G. Walter Dittmar – A former president of the American Dental Association
• Bill Emmerson – California State Assembly member who had a 22 year practice
• Thomas W. Evans – founded the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
• Sheila Faith – British politician of the Conservative party
• Pierre Fauchard – wrote the first complete scientific description of dentistry
• Rabab Fetieh – First Saudi female orthodontist
• Alfred Fones (1869-1938) – came up with the name "dental hygienist" and founded that profession
• Sten Forshufvud – Swedish dentist who drew on his professional knowledge when theorizing about the poisoning of Napoleon
• Rosalie Fougelberg – An early female dentist in Sweden
• Samir Ghawshah – Leader of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
• John Goodsir – Wrote a noted essay on teeth
• George Franklin Grant – First African-American professor at Harvard. He also invented a wooden golf tee.
• Greeeen – Four member Japanese pop music band consisting entirely of dentists who studied at Ohu University in Fukushima
• John "Dok" Hager – Cartoonist whose nickname came from his days as a dentist
• Jim Harrell, Jr. – past chairman of the American Dental Association Council on Governmental Affairs, and a Democratic Party (United States) politician
• Chapin A. Harris – Founded the first dental school in the US, or possibly anywhere
• John Henry "Doc" Holliday – Dentist and American Folklore icon, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral participant
• Les Horvath – Winner of Heisman Trophy who became a dentist
• Edward Hudson – Eminent dentist when the field was new, he is also noted for making fake "ruins"
• Lester C. Hunt – Democratic Party (United States) politician who served in the Dental Corps in World War I.(Committed suicide)
• Fatima Jinnah – Sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and "Mother of the Nation" in Pakistan
• Arif Alvi – Former Secretary General of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
• Erhard Keller – Speed skater at the Winter Olympic Games and professional dentist for over thirty years
• Michael Krop – Democratic Party (United States) politician with a school named for him
• Peter Kunter – Football player for Eintracht Frankfurt
• Donald Leake – Dentist, inventor of the alloplastic tray, and oboist
• Charles Goodall Lee – He was the first licensed dentist of Asian ancestry in the United States of America. He was a founder of Chinatown, Oakland, California, and helped fund the founding of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance.
• Jim Lonborg – In the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame, he is now a dentist.
• Mahlon Loomis – Known for a wireless telegraph patent
• Jiko Luveni – Fijian dentist who works on combatting AIDS
• Edward Maynard – He worked on United States Congressmen and in 1888 he held the chair of Dental Theory and Practice at the National university in Washington. (Better known for firearms inventions)
• Stanley McInnis – Canadian who moved a motion at a meeting of the Canadian Dental Association to adopt a code of ethics, also a politician
• Markus Merk – FIFA referee from Germany
• Ramón Mestre – Former Governor of Córdoba
• Frederick B. Morrehead – Helped save the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry
• Jack Miller – The "racing dentist" who was in the Indianapolis 500
• Richard Müller (murderer) – German dentist and murderer
• John Newbrough – Of Oahspe
• Charlie Norwood – served in the Dental Corps and was a member of the United States Congress
• Hessam Nowzari – founder of the Taipei Academy of Reconstructive Dentistry in Taiwan
• Frederick Bogue Noyes – organized the first course on dental pathology in the United States
• Giovanni Battista Orsenigo – Monk/dentist
• Rodrigues Ottolengui – Sephardic Jewish dental pioneer who was one of the first to use X-rays (also wrote mystery novels)
• Ron Packard – Navy Dental Corps and a private practice, he was later on the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations
• Painless Parker – Dentist and huckster
• Rudy Perpich – American dentist/politician of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
• Fritz Pfeffer – Dentist who hid with Anne Frank
• Earl W. Renfroe – Broke barriers for African American, headed a dentistry department
• Paul Rentsch – Dentist in the Nazi resistance movement
• Harry Sagansky – Gangster trained in dentistry who had a practice
• Ben L. Salomon – American military dentist and World War II Medal of Honor recipient
• Hugo Sánchez – Mexican football player
• Isaac Schour – A former dean of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry
• Helen Rulison Shipley, first female dentist in Nevada
• John Smith (dentist) – the founder of the Edinburgh school of dentistry
• Mark Spitz – Olympic swimmer (was actually accepted to dental school, but competed in the Olympics instead)
• Charles Stent – Dentist who advanced Dentures making
• Jon Sudbø – Norwegian dentist linked to a case of scientific misconduct
• Lucy Hobbs Taylor – The first female in the United States with a doctorate in dentistry
• José Roberto Magalhães Teixeira – Brazilian politician
• Mohamed Khir bin Toyo – Malaysian politician
• Charles Murray Turpin – Republican politician in the United States House of Representatives
• Thomas Bramwell Welch – Founder of Welch's
• Horace Wells – Pioneered the use of anesthesia in dentistry, later committed suicide

Fictional dentists

• Carl Howell – from the TV series Glee.
• Bernard Nadler – from the TV series Lost.
• Matthew Brock – from NewsRadio. (Although he gave it up to work in radio and is only seen practicing in one episode)
• Dr. Tariq Faraj – From Oz.
• Bob Fish – a title character in Bob and Margaret.
• Dr Barry Farber – Rachel's fiance whom she left at the altar from Friends
• Ben Harper – from British sitcom My Family.
• Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky – from The Whole Nine Yards and The Whole Ten Yards.
• John Patterson – in For Better or For Worse.
• Dr. Frank Sangster – in Novocaine.
• Julia Harris from the film Horrible Bosses.
• Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. (Steve Martin) – Little Shop of Horrors (1986 film)
• Christian Szell – from William Goldman's Marathon Man, later a movie by John Schlesinger
• Capt. Walter Koskiusko Waldowski, "Painless Pole" – in MASH
• Tim Whatley – from the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, alleged to be an insincere convert to Judaism.
• Dr. Wolfe – from The Simpsons
• Isaac Yankem, DDS – professional wrestler portrayed by Glenn Jacobs in the WWF (now known as Kane)
• Orson Hodge – from Desperate Housewives
• Sheldon Kornpett (Alan Arkin) – Manhattan dentist in the 1979 comedy film The In-Laws
• The W.C. Fields character in the 1932 short film The Dentist
• Jerry Robinson, an orthodontist who shared the office suite on Bob Newhart Show
• Brock Hart – from the TV series Reba
• Unnamed parents of Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter novels