This is a list of notable Cubans, ordered alphabetically by first name within each category.

Additional lists

For Cuban-Americans please see List of Cuban Americans

Art and entertainment

Actors

Architects

• Raúl de Armas
• Nicolas Arroyo
• Max Borges Jr.
• Max Borges del Junco
• Felicia Chateloin
• Leonardo Morales y Pedroso
• Ricardo Porro
• Antonio Quintana Simonetti
• Eugenio Rayneri Piedra
• Mario Romañach

Artists, photographers and fashion designers

• Agustín Cárdenas, sculptor
• Alberto Korda, photographer
• Alexandre Arrechea, painter, sculptor
• Amelia Peláez, painter
• Baruj Salinas, painter
• Carlos Enríquez, painter
• Fidelio Ponce de León, painter
• Herman Puig (born German Puig Paredes), photographer
• Humberto Jesús Castro García, painter
• José Bernal, painter
• José Vilalta Saavedra, sculptor
• Josignacio, creator of plastic paint medium, contemporary painter
• Juan José Sicre, sculptor
• Juan T. Vázquez Martín, painter
• Lourdes Gomez Franca, painter
• Luis Castaneda, photographer
• Mario Perez, painter
• Miguel Fleitas, painter, photographer
• Miguel Rodez, painter, sculptor
• Pedro Álvarez Castelló, painter
• Rafael Consuegra, sculptor
• Raúl Corrales, photographer
• Raúl Martínez, pop artist, painter
• Rene Mederos, poster artist and graphic designer
• René Portocarrero, painter
• Tomas Sanchez, painter
• Victor Manuel, painter
• Waldo Diaz-Balart, painter
• Wifredo Lam, painter

Authors and poets

• Alejo Carpentier, ^[1] novelist
• Antonio Benitez-Rojo, author
• Brígida Agüero, poet
• Daína Chaviano, author
• Carilda Oliver Labra, poet
• Domitila García de Coronado, writer and journalist
• Dulce María Loynaz, author
• Edmundo Desnoes, author
• Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, author, poet
• Guillermo Cabrera Infante, ^[1] author
• Heberto Padilla, poet
• Héctor Zumbado, writer, journalist, humorist, critic
• José Ignacio Rivero, author and journalist
• Antonio Rodríguez Salvador, poet, author
• José Lezama Lima, ^[1] author, poet
• José María Heredia y Campuzano, poet
• José Martí, author, poet, journalist
• Julián del Casal, 19th-century poet
• Leonardo Padura Fuentes, novelist, journalist
• Mariano Brull, author
• Nancy Morejón, author
• José Gómez-Sicre, art critic and author
• Nicolás Guillén, ^[1] poet
• Norberto Fuentes, author
• Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, author, poet, painter
• Pedro Luis Boitel, poet
• Raúl Rivero, poet and journalist
• Reinaldo Arenas, ^[1] author
• Severo Sarduy, ^[1] poet
• Virgilio Piñera, author, playwright, poet, short-story writer and essayist
• Zoé Valdés, author
• Cirilo Villaverde

Composers

• Alejandro García Caturla, symphonic composer
• Mariá Álvarez Rios, composer
• Antonio María Romeu, composer
• Arsenio Rodríguez, developer of the rumba
• Didier Hernández, singer composer
• Ernesto Lecuona, often regarded as the greatest Cuban composer
• Esteban Salas y Castro, 18th century Cuban baroque composer
• Gonzalo Roig, often regarded as one of the greatest composers of Cuba, "Quiere me mucho"/ Cecilia Valdez
• Ignacio Cervantes, Chopinesque piano composer
• José White Lafitte, violinist and composer
• Leo Brouwer, guitarist and composer
• Yalil Guerra, composer
• Amadeo Roldán, composer and violinist
• Dámaso Pérez Prado, developer of the mambo
• Armando Rodriguez-Gonzalez, composer
• Antonio Rodríguez Ferrer, composer
• René Touzet, composer, bandleader and pianist
• Flores Chaviano, guitarist and composer
• Danilo Avilés, composer
• Magaly Ruiz, composer
• José Ardévol, composer
• Harold Gramatges, composer
• Carlos Fariñas, composer
• Roberto Valera, composer
• Julián Orbón, composer
• Margarita Lecuona, singer and composer

Chess

• José Raúl Capablanca, chess world champion, grandmaster considered "the Mozart of Chess"
• Juan Corzo, chess
• Lázaro Bruzón, chess grandmaster
• María Teresa Mora

Musicians

Film directors

• Ernesto Daranas
• Fernando Pérez
• Humberto Padrón
• Jorge Luis Sánchez
• Juan Carlos Cremata
• Juan Padrón
• Miguel Coyula
• Rodrigo García
• Santiago Álvarez
• Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Journalists

• Calixto Martínez
• German Pinelli
• Héctor Zumbado, writer, journalist, humorist, and critic
• Nicolás Guillén
• Oscar Espinosa Chepe
• Pablo de la Torriente Brau
• Raúl Rivero
• Rick Sanchez

Dancers

• Alicia Alonso, Prima Ballerina Assoluta, director of the Cuban National Ballet (Ballet Nacional de Cuba)
• Carlos Acosta, dancer
• Sadaise Arencibia, star dancer with the Cuban National Ballet
• Fernando Bujones, dancer
• Jose Manuel Carreño, American Ballet Theatre principal dancer
• Lydia Diaz Cruz, prima ballerina
• Miguel Campaneria, ballet dancer, currently artistic director of the National Ballet Theater of Puerto Rico
• Vida Guerra, video dancer
• Yat-Sen Chang, principal dancer, English National Ballet

Other entertainment

• Alvarez Guedes, comedian and author
• Ana María Polo, television personality and lawyer
• Alina María Hernández, "Cachita", television personality
• Cristina Saralegui, magazine editor, talk show host (Cristina) and actress
• Vida Guerra, model/actress
• Lili Estefan, television personality and former model
• Mauricio Zeilic, television personality
• Mayra Verónica, model
• Nelson Ascencio, comedian ( Madtv)
• Pedro Zamora, AIDS activist, featured on The Real World: San Francisco
• Raúl De Molina, television personality
• Raúl Musibay, Food Network chef and author
• Rosaura Andreu, children's television entertainer

Sport

Baseball

Boxing

• Adolfo Horta, featherweight Olympic boxer
• Ariel Hernández, Middleweight Olympic boxer
• Armando Martínez, light middle-weight Olympic boxer
• Benny Paret, boxer
• Eliseo Castillo, boxer
• Félix Savón, Olympic boxer
• Florentino Fernández, boxer
• Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz, amateur boxer
• Joel Casamayor, boxer
• Jorge Rubio, boxing trainer
• José Nápoles, boxer
• Kid Charol, boxer
• Kid Chocolate, boxer
• Kid Gavilán, boxer
• Lorenzo Aragon Armenteros, Olympic welterweight boxer
• Luis Manuel Rodríguez, boxer
• Mario César Kindelán Mesa, Olympic gold medal-winning boxer
• Raúl González, boxer
• Roberto Balado, Olympic super heavyweight boxer
• Sugar Ramos, world champion boxer
• Teófilo Stevenson, amateur boxer
• Yan Bartelemí, light flyweight gold medal winning boxer
• Yanqui Díaz, boxer
• Yudel Johnson Cedeno light-welterweight Olympic boxer
• Yuriorkis Gamboa, flyweight Olympic gold medal-winning boxer

Athletes

Swimming

• Joel Armas, record holder in the US in monofin swimming
• Neisser Bent, bronze medalist at the 1996 Summer Olympics
• Rodolfo Falcón, silver medalist at the 1996 Summer Olympics
• Leonel "Bebito" Smith, gold medalist in the 1926 and 1930 Central American and Caribbean Games

Other

• Deborah Andollo, holds world records in free diving
• Alberto Delgado, soccer
• Ivan Dominguez, two time gold medalist in the Pan American Games and Cuban national champion in cycling
• Héctor Socorro, footballer
• Ibrahim Rojas, flatwater canoer
• Juan Tuñas, former Cuban footballer
• Manrique Larduet, gymnast
• Rafael A. Lecuona, gymnast
• Rey Ángel Martínez, soccer
• Tomás Fernández, footballer in the 1938 World Cup
• Yanelis Yuliet Labrada Diaz, Olympic silver medallist in Taekwondo
• Maykel Galindo, soccer
• Jorge Sánchez Salgado, volleyball player

Politics

Current

• Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, vice president of the Council of State of Cuba
• Alfonso Fraga-Perez, diplomat, Secretary General of the Organization of Solidarity of the People of Asia, Africa & Latin America ( OSPAAAL), former Head of Cuban Interests Section
• Carlos Lage Dávila, former executive Secretary of the Council of Ministers of Cuba
• Felipe Pérez Roque, former Cuban government minister
• Fidel Castro, previous First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
• José Luis Rodríguez García, Cuban government minister
• José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera, current Minister for Health in Cuba
• Juan Almeida Bosque, third ranking member of the Cuban Council of State
• Luis Posada Carriles, Cuban paramilitary leader, accused terrorist
• Mariela Castro, director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education and daughter of Raúl Castro
• Oscar Elías Biscet, physician and dissident and founder of the Lawton Foundation, currently jailed
• Oswaldo Payá, founder of Proyecto Varela
• Raúl Castro, current First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
• Liaena Hernandez Martínez, youngest member of the Cuban National Assembly
• Roberto Fernández Retamar, President of the Casa de las Américas
• Ricardo Alarcón, President of the Cuban National Assembly
• Rosa Elena Simeón Negrín, former Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment
• Pedro Pablo Prada Quintero, diplomat
• Juan Valdés Figueroa, diplomat

Historical

• Abel Santamaría, Cuban revolutionary
• Alcibiades Hidalgo, former ambassador to the UN
• Ana Betancourt, first to campaign for equal rights for Cuban women, in 1868 during the Ten Years' War
• Andrés Rivero Agüero, Cuba's prime minister from March 1957 to March 1958
• Anselmo Alliegro, acting president of Cuba for one day (1–2 January 1959) after the departure of General Fulgencio Batista from the country
• Antonio Guiteras, politician and revolutionary
• Antonio Maceo, revolutionary, military strategist
• Armando Hart Dávalos, politician and Communist leader
• Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban revolutionary
• Carlos Hevia, provisional president of Cuba 1934
• Pilar Jorge de Tella, suffragist
• Carlos Manuel Piedra, acting president of Cuba for one day (2 January 1959) after the departure of General Fulgencio Batista from the country
• Carlos Prío Socarrás, former President of Cuba
• Celia Sánchez, Cuban revolutionary and Secretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers
• Cosme Torres Espinoza, ambassador to Zimbabwe
• Eduardo Chibás, Cuban politician who used radio to broadcast his political views against Batista's government to the public
• Federico Laredo Brú, President of Cuba from 1936 to 1940
• Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, Cuban anarchist
• Fabio Grobart, Communist leader
• Fulgencio Batista, former Cuban President
• Frank País, 20th century revolutionary
• Gerardo Machado, Cuban president 1920–33
• Gustavo Arcos, Cuban Revolutionary later became an imprisoned dissident
• Huber Matos, Cuban Revolutionary
• Ignacio Agramonte, 19th century Cuban revolutionary
• Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the Cuban American National Foundation
• José Miró Cardona, President of Cuba in 1959
• José Martí, poet, philosopher, politician, writer, revolutionary
• Juan Carlos Robinson Agramonte, former member of the Cuban politburo and first Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Cuban Communist Party in Santiago de Cuba
• Julio Antonio Mella, founder of the original Cuban Communist Party
• Jorge Payret, diplomat and academic
• Leopoldo Cancio, deputy and Sectetary of Education
• Manuel Piñeiro, first head of the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate
• Manuel Urrutia Lleó, provisional Cuban President January to July 1959
• Miguel Mariano Gómez, President of Cuba for seven months in 1936
• Paul Lafargue, Cuban-born French Communist and son-in-law to Karl Marx
• Pedro Pablo Cazañas, Cuban judge and politician
• Rafael Diaz-Balart, Cuban politician and majority leader during presidency of Batista
• Ramón Grau, Cuban president for two terms 1933, 1940–44
• Saturnino and Mariano Lora, brothers and 19th century revolutionaries
• Vilma Espín Guillois, President of the Cuban Federation of Women, wife of Raúl Castro
• Virgilio Paz Romero, anti-Castro paramilitary

Religion

• Alfredo Llaguno-Canals, former Auxiliary Bishop of Havana
• Miguel A. De La Torre, prolific author on Hispanic religiosity
• Agustin Roman, retired Auxiliary Bishop of Miami
• Braulio Orue-Vivanco, former Bishop of Pinar del Río
• Eduardo Tomas Boza-Masvidal, former Auxiliary Bishop of Havana
• Félix Varela, beatified priest, candidate for sainthood
• Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Archbishop of Havana
• Meyer Rosenbaum, former rabbi and spiritual leader in Havana

Royalty and nobility

• Maria Teresa, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
• Edelmira Ignacia Adriana Sampedro-Robato, Countess of Covadonga, first wife of Alfonso Prince of Asturias
• Marta Ester Rocafort-Altazarra, second wife of Alfonso Prince of Asturias

Military

• Adolfo Fernández Cavada, captain in the Union Army during the American Civil War who later served as commander-in-chief of the Cinco Villas during Cuba's Ten Year War
• Alberto Bayo y Giroud, Cuban military leader of the defeated left-wing Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War
• Antonio Maceo Grajales, second-in-command of the Cuban army of independence
• Arnaldo Ochoa, Cuban general
• Calixto García, Cuban soldier in the Ten Years' War
• Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Cuban general in the war of independence against the Spanish
• Eliseo Reyes Rodríguez, Cuban guerrillero
• Emilio Mola Vidal (1887–1937), Nationalist commander during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39); known for coining the phrase "fifth column"
• Federico Fernández Cavada, colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War; later commander-in-chief of all the Cuban forces during Cuba's Ten Year War
• Jesús Sosa Blanco, captain in the Cuban army under Fulgencio Batista
• José Braulio Alemán, Cuban general in the Spanish–American War
• José Miguel Gómez, Cuban General in the war of independence against the Spanish
• Julius Peter Garesché, lieutenant colonel in the Union Army who served as chief of staff, with the rank of lieutenant colonel to Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans
• Loreta Janeta Velazquez, a.k.a. "Lieutenant Harry Buford", Velazquez was a Cuban-born woman who masqueraded as a male Confederate soldier during the Civil War
• Manuel Artime, leader of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961
• Máximo Gómez, 19th-century leader of Cuban forces in the wars of independence
• Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, chief air force commander and member of Operation 40
• Víctor Dreke, Communist leader and a general in the Revolutionary Armed Forces
• Tomás Diez Acosta, revolutionary soldier and historian
• Víctor Ivo Acuña Velázquez, military commander
• Pilar Garcia, pre-revolutionary Chief of National Police

Science

• Luis Alvarez, winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics, worked on the Manhattan Project
• Agustin Walfredo Castellanos, physician
• Carlos Juan Finlay, epidemiologist, proposed the mode of transmission of yellow fever and was instrumental in assisting Walter Reed with his studies in Cuba
• Juan Gundlach, 19th century naturalist and taxonomist
• Celia Hart, Cuban physicist
• Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, first Cuban cosmonaut and the first person from a country in the Western Hemisphere other than the U.S. to travel to space
• Hilda Molina, former chief neurosurgeon in Cuba
• Felipe Poey, zoologist

Other categories

• Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, human rights activist
• Ramón Castro, older brother of Fidel and Raúl Castro
• Mirta Diaz-Balart, Fidel Castro's first wife
• Enriqueta García y Martín, prominent Cuban socialite, businesswoman and landowner
• Delfín Fernández, High ranking government official, defected to Spain
• Gregorio Fuentes, Cuban nautical captain
• Elián González, boy who came to the US, leading to a custody battle between his American family and his father in Cuba
• Jose Miguel Battle, Sr., former Godfather of the Cuban Mafia
• Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven, Judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice at the Hague
• Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón, educator and college president
• Jesús Permuy, human rights activist, architect, urban planner, community leader
• Ignacio José Urrutia (born 1730), historian
• Nitza Villapol, Cuban chef

Non-resident Cubans

• List of Cuban-Americans
• List of Cuban-Mexicans
• Dane Bowers
• Guillermo Cabrera Infante
• Yat-Sen Chang
• Sienna Guillory
• William Montagu (Yznaga)^{[ citation needed]}
• Consuelo Yznaga ^[3]
• Taismary Agüero
• Mirka Francia
• Libania Grenot
• Magdelín Martínez
• Alex Cabrera
• Majandra Delfino
• Viviana Gibelli
• Arturo Miranda
• Eduardo Sebrango
• Bárbara Bermudo
• Mike Lowell
• Carlos Ponce
• Rita Marley
• Ziggy Marley
• Lenny Martinez
• Mariane Pearl
• Oscar Isaac

References

See also

• List of people by nationality