List of dentists
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 – became a dentist after playing Major League Baseball
- Gunadasa Amarasekara – Sinhala language writer
- Amalia Assur first woman dentist in Sweden and possibly Europe.
- Rafiuddin Ahmed – Indian dentist. founded the First Dental College of India
B
- Franz Bäke – Nazi Panzer ace
- Britt Baker – American professional wrestler currently performing with All Elite Wrestling; also has a full-time dental practice in Florida
- 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 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 – 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 – American football player and counterfeiter
- Georg Carabelli – court dentist to the Austrian Emperor who founded a clinic in the University of Vienna
- Gerald Cardinale – Republican Party 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 – American politician, Utah state senator
- 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 – Canadian politician, Quebec cabinet minister
- 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 – 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 – governor of Tennessee
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 – Surgeon Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy who was Honorary Dental Surgeon to the Queen from 1955 to 1960.
- Alfred Fones – 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
- Michael Glick – dean of SUNY Buffalo Dental School
- John Goodsir – wrote a noted essay on teeth
- Paul Gosar – American politician, representative in Congress from Arizona
- 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 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 – General Authority of LDS Church
- 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 politician who served in the Dental Corps in World War I.
I
- Francis Brodie Imlach – Scottish dental pioneer. First dentist to use chloroform as an anaesthetic
J
- Cheddi Jagan – former president of Guyana
- Fatima Jinnah – sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and "Mother of the Nation" in Pakistan
K
- Scott Keadle – American politician from North Carolina
- Erhard Keller – speed skater at the Winter Olympic Games and professional dentist for over thirty years
- Michael Krop – Democratic Party politician with a school named for him
- Peter Kunter – football player for Eintracht Frankfurt
L
- Gordon R. Lawson -New Zealand rugby player
- Donald Leake – dentist, inventor of the alloplastic tray, and oboist
- Charles Goodall Lee – 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 – Swedish politician
- John Linder – American politician, representative in Congress
- 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.
M
- Bernie Machen – president of University of Florida and University of Utah
- Martin Marks
- Edward Maynard – treated United States Congressmen and in 1888 he held the chair of Dental Theory and Practice at the National university in Washington.
- 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 – "racing dentist" who was in the Indianapolis 500
- Mike Morton – football player
N
- John Newbrough – of Oahspe
- Phil Northrup – Spiritualist author
- 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
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 – swimmer
- Guillermo Peschard – Mexican founder of the UJED School of Dentistry
- Steve Petryk – curler
- Rudy Perpich – American dentist/politician of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
- William Albert Pommer – Canadian politician
- Fritz Pfeffer – dentist who hid with Anne Frank
Q
R
- Bessie Raiche – aviation pioneer
- Earl W. Renfroe – broke barriers for African Americans, headed a dentistry department
- Charles Richard – Canadian politician
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 – football player
- Helen Rulison Shipley – first female dentist in Nevada
- Mike Simpson – US representative from Idaho
- Joseph Slogan – Canadian politician
- John Smith – founder of the Edinburgh school of dentistry
- Mark Spitz – Olympic swimmer
- Charles Stent – dentist who advanced Dentures making
- Charles H. Strub – sports entrepreneur
- 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
U
V
- Mahesh Verma – Indian prosthodontist and the Director and Principal of Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences
W
- Harold Gladstone Watkin – orthodontist
- John Weisbeck – Canadian politician
- Thomas Bramwell Welch – founder of Welch's
- Horace Wells – pioneered the use of anesthesia in dentistry, later committed suicide
- Gerrit Wolsink – motocross racer
X
Y
- W. J. Younger – American dentist who performed some of the earliest and most groundbreaking research in the field of periodontology
Z
- Leonie von Meusebach–Zesch – pioneer female dentist who practiced in Texas, Alaska, Arizona and California
Fictional dentists
- The aforementioned Britt Baker is routinely introduced in All Elite Wrestling as "Dr. Britt Baker, DMD", reflecting her real-life dental practice.
- Jeremy Hillary Boob – from Yellow Submarine.
- Matthew Brock – from NewsRadio.
- Dr. Carey – from Stuart Little
- 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.
- Wendell and Monica Wilkins: originally only named as Mr. and Mrs. Granger, 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 – from the 1968 comedy film The Shakiest Gun in the West, a remake of Bob Hope's The Paleface.
- Orson Hodge – from Desperate Housewives.
- Carl Howell – from the TV series Glee.
- Sheldon Kornpett – 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 – 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 – orthodontist who shared the office suite on the Bob Newhart Show
- Miss Root – dentist in the book Demon Dentist by David Walliams
- Dr. Frank Sangster – in Novocaine.
- Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. – Little Shop of Horrors
- Dr. Charley Shanowski – from Hope & Faith
- Eugene Sutphin – from Serial Mom.
- Christian Szell – from William Goldman's Marathon Man, later a movie by John Schlesinger
- Noah Werner – Suburgatory
- Tim Whatley and Mr. Abbot – from the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, Whatley alleged to be an insincere convert to Judaism.
- Julian Winston – adulterer in the play ) and its film adaptation
- Dr. Wolfe – from The Simpsons
- Isaac Yankem, DDS – professional wrestler portrayed by Glenn Jacobs, now known as Kane, in the WWF
Other
- Greeeen – four member Japanese pop music band consisting entirely of dentists who studied at Ohu University in Fukushima