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

A

• Sam Aanestad – former Californian politician
• Harold Albrecht – Conservative Party of Canada politician
• Tomas Albrektsson – implant dentistry
• Henry Aldridge – politician from North Carolina
• Bill Allen – former president of the British Dental Association.
• Theodore C. Almquist – Brigadier General, US Air Force
• Edward Angle – Father of Orthodontics
• Arif Alvi – President of Pakistan
• 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.

B

• Franz Bäke – Nazi Panzer ace.
• Charles Spence Bate – 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 – President of Turkmenistan
• André Bolhuis – Netherlands Field Hockey Player
• Daniel Bukantz – American fencer
• Paul Beresford – Conservative Party (UK) politician.
• David Bernier – Secretary of State of Puerto Rico
• 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
• Julius Bruck – also designed a water-cooled diaphanoscopic instrument for translumination of the bladder via the rectum
• 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

C

• Héctor José Cámpora – President of Argentina
• 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
• Allen M. Christensen
• 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 – secretary of the Ontario Dental Association and later mayor of Toronto
• Pierre Corbeil
• Dan Crane – American Dentist/politician. Republican Party
• Gerry Curatola

D

• Miles Dewey Davis, Jr. – 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 – former president of the American Dental Association
• Robert Dudley – actor
• Winfield Dunn

E

• Bill Emmerson – California State Assembly member who had a 22-year practice
• Saskia Estupiñán, Ecuadoran oral health researcher and advisor, known for her work with the World Health Organization
• Thomas W. Evans – founded the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine

F

• Sheila Faith – British politician of the Conservative party
• Pierre Fauchard – wrote the first complete scientific description of dentistry
• Rabab Fetieh – First Saudi female orthodontist
• Charles Finnigan (1901–1967) – Surgeon Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy who was Honorary Dental Surgeon to the Queen from 1955 to 1960.
• 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 – early female dentist in Sweden

G

• Samir Ghawshah – Leader of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
• John Goodsir – Wrote a noted essay on teeth
• Paul Gosar
• Michael Glick
• George Franklin Grant – First African-American professor at Harvard. He also invented a wooden golf tee.
• Zane Grey – Author of Riders of the Purple Sage and practicing dentist
• William Guy – Scottish dentist, creator of the Dental Act of 1921 in UK

H

• 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 – Co-Founded the first dental school in the US, or possibly anywhere
• Horace H. Hayden – Architect of the American system of dental education & organizer of professional dentistry
• Heimir Hallgrímsson – Icelandic football player and manager, former manager of the Iceland men's national football team, has practiced dentistry throughout his playing and managing career.
• Harold G. Hillam
• Gay Hitler – Pickaway County, Ohio pioneer
• John Henry "Doc" Holliday – Dentist and American Folklore icon, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral participant
• Matthew Hopcraft – Public dentistry expert and MasterChef Australia contestant
• 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)

I

• Francis Brodie Imlach – Scottish dental pioneer. First dentist to use chloroform as an anaesthetic

J

• Fatima Jinnah – Sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and "Mother of the Nation" in Pakistan

K

• Scott Keadle
• 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

L

• Gordon R. Lawson
• 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
• Robert Lee – African-American emigrant to Ghana.
• Hardy Limeback – proponent who led water fluoridation efforts in Canada
• Göran Lindblad
• John Linder
• 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
• Alexander Gordon Lyle – United States Navy dentist and World War I Medal of Honor recipient and first military dentist to be promoted to Flag rank (Admiral/General).

M

• Bernie Machen
• Martin Marks
• 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
• Richard Mounce
• 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
• Mike Morton

N

• John Newbrough – Of Oahspe
• Phil Northrup
• 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

O

• Giovanni Battista Orsenigo – Monk/dentist
• Weedon E. Osborne – United States Navy dentist and World War I Medal of Honor recipient.
• Rodrigues Ottolengui – Sephardic Jewish dental pioneer who was one of the first to use X-rays (also wrote mystery novels)

P

• 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
• William Paulus
• Steve Petryk
• Rudy Perpich – American dentist/politician of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
• William Albert Pommer
• Fritz Pfeffer – Dentist who hid with Anne Frank

R

• Bessie Raiche – aviation pioneer
• Earl W. Renfroe – broke barriers for African Americans, headed a dentistry department
• Charles Richard

S

• 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 – former dean of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry
• Terry Schmidt
• Helen Rulison Shipley – first female dentist in Nevada
• Mike Simpson
• Joseph Slogan
• John Smith (dentist) – 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
• Charles H. Strub
• Jon Sudbø – Norwegian dentist linked to a case of scientific misconduct

T

• Lucy Hobbs Taylor – first female in the United States with a doctorate in dentistry
• José Roberto Magalhães Teixeira – Brazilian politician
• Mohamed Khir bin Toyo – Malaysian politician
• Joseph Trumpeldor – Zionist national hero
• Charles Murray Turpin – Republican politician in the United States House of Representatives

W

• Harold Gladstone Watkin (1882–1965) – orthodontist
• John Weisbeck
• Thomas Bramwell Welch – Founder of Welch's
• Horace Wells – Pioneered the use of anesthesia in dentistry, later committed suicide
• Gerrit Wolsink

Z

• Leonie von Meusebach–Zesch – Pioneer female dentist who practiced in Texas, Alaska, Arizona and California

Fictional dentists

• Jeremy Hillary Boob (voiced by Dick Emery) – From Yellow Submarine.
• Matthew Brock – from NewsRadio. (Although he gave it up to work in radio and is only seen practicing in one episode)
• Dr. Dillingham – From Prostho Plus.
• Walt Duncan – head of the household at the centre of comic strip Zits.
• Dr. Tariq Faraj – From Oz.
• Dr. Barry Farber – Rachel's fiance whom she left at the altar from Friends.
• The unnamed W.C. Fields character in the 1932 short film The Dentist.
• Bob Fish – a title character in Bob and Margaret.
• Unnamed parents of Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter novels.
• Julia Harris from the film Horrible Bosses.
• Ben Harper – from British sitcom My Family.
• Brock Hart – from the TV series Reba.
• Hermey the Elf – became a dentist in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys prior was an elf.
• Jesse W. Heywood (Don Knotts) – from the 1968 comedy film The Shakiest Gun in the West, a remake of Bob Hope's The Paleface (1948).
• Orson Hodge – from Desperate Housewives.
• Carl Howell (John Stamos) – from the TV series Glee.
• Sheldon Kornpett (Alan Arkin) – Manhattan dentist in the 1979 comedy film The In-Laws.
• Capt. Walter Koskiusko Waldowski, "Painless Pole" – in MASH.
• Bernard Nadler – from the TV series Lost.
• Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky – from The Whole Nine Yards and The Whole Ten Yards.
• John Patterson – in For Better or For Worse.
• Peter "Painless" Potter (Bob Hope) – from the 1948 comedy film The Paleface. Bumbling dentist who was fooled into believing that he was a deadly gunfighter.
• Lincoln Rice DDS – from Broad City.
• Jerry Robinson, an orthodontist who shared the office suite on the Bob Newhart Show
• Dr. Frank Sangster – in Novocaine.
• Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. (Steve Martin) – Little Shop of Horrors
• Dr. Charley Shanowski (Ted McGinley) From Hope & Faith
• Eugene Sutphin (Sam Waterston)– From Serial Mom.
• Christian Szell – from William Goldman's Marathon Man, later a movie by John Schlesinger
• Noah Werner (Alan Tudyk) – Suburgatory (TV series)
• Tim Whatley (Bryan Cranston) and Mr. Abbot (Robert Wagner) – from the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, Whatley 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)

Other

• Greeeen – Four member Japanese pop music band consisting entirely of dentists who studied at Ohu University in Fukushima