List of deaf people

Deaf people are typically defined as those who have profound hearing impairment in both ears as a result of either acquired or congenital hearing loss. Such people may be associated with deaf culture. Deafness (little to no hearing) is distinguished from partial hearing loss or damage (such as tinnitus), which is less severe impairment in one or both sides.[1] The definition of deafness varies across countries, cultures, and time, though the World Health Organization classes profound hearing loss as the failure to hear a sound of 90 decibels or louder in a hearing test.[2]

In addition to those with profound hearing loss, people without profound hearing loss may also identify as deaf, often where the person was raised within a deaf community and for whom sign language is their first language.[3] Those who have mostly lived as a hearing person and acquire deafness briefly, due to a temporary illness or shortly before death, for example, are not typically classed as deaf people.

Deaf educators and organizers

• Ferdinand Berthier, French intellectual, published several articles, first deaf person to receive the French Legion of Honour, founder of world's first deaf organization
• Julia Brace (1807–1884), early American deaf-blind student at the Hartford School for the Deaf
• Laura Bridgman, (1829–1889), American, first deaf-blind student of Dr. Samuel Howe at the Perkins School for the Blind
• Teresa de Cartagena, Spanish conversa nun and mystic author of the 15th century who became deaf in later life. The first mystic author in Spanish.
• Laurent Clerc (1785–1869), student and teacher (1798–1816) at the Paris deaf school of the Abbé de l'Épée; accompanied Thomas Gallaudet to America to teach deaf children. Co-founded the first deaf school in North America in 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut.
• Alice Cogswell, the first deaf student at American School for the Deaf
• Robert R. Davila, the ninth president of Gallaudet University
• Pierre Desloges (1742–?), French deaf writer and bookbinder, first known deaf person to publish a book
• Jane Fernandes American college president and educator, in July 2014, the first deaf woman to serve as president of an American college or university at Guilford College and the first deaf woman to head a school for the deaf Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind (1990-1995) [4]
• Andrew Foster, (1925–1987), American educator, the first Black deaf person to earn a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet College, Christian missionary to Africa
• T. Alan Hurwitz, the tenth president of Gallaudet University and former Vice President of National Technical Institute for the Deaf
• Casar Jacobson, Norwegian-Canadian first-ever deaf winner of Miss Canada (2013), a disability rights activist and the UN Woman Youth Champion.
• I. King Jordan, the first deaf president (eighth overall) of Gallaudet University
• Liisa Kauppinen (born 1939), Finnish human rights activist, former president of the World Federation of the Deaf
• Helen Keller, American deaf-blind writer, lecturer, and actress
• Dorothy Miles, deaf poet and activist
• Lawrence R. Newman, deaf educator and activist, and served two terms as President of the National Association of the Deaf
• Michael Ndurumo, a deaf educator from Kenya, the third deaf person from Africa to obtain a PhD
• Marie Jean Philip, a teacher and leading international advocate for the right to sign language
• George Veditz, the former president of the National Association of the Deaf, and one of the first people to film sign language

Actors

• Sean Berdy, actor and comedian[5]
• Linda Bove, actress, known particularly for the role of Linda the Librarian on the children's television program Sesame Street[6]
• Bruce Willis, American actor, producer, and singer, 70% deaf in his left ear
• Shelley Beattie, American actress and bodybuilder
• Deanne Bray, actress who played the lead role on Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye
• Millie Bobby Brown, an actress from Stranger Things, totally deaf in her right ear
• Aryana Engineer, actress
• Lou Ferrigno, American actor and bodybuilder
• Phyllis Frelich, American actress, Best Actress in a Broadway play: Children of a Lesser God 1980
• Russell Harvard, actor whose first language is American Sign Language[7]
• Bob Hiltermann, actor, writer, director, and musician
• Emilio Insolera, Italian actor and director of Sign Gene
• Ryan Lane, actor and model
• Gabriella Leon, English actress
• Marlee Matlin, only deaf person to win an Academy Award (Best Actress) for her role in Children of a Lesser God
• Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American comedic actor who was legally deaf[8]
• Terrylene Sacchetti, actress
• Howie Seago, actor and director
• Millicent Simmonds, deaf actress
• Shoshannah Stern, actress in Jericho and Weeds whose first language is American Sign Language[9]
• Alexandria Wailes, deaf actress, dancer, and educator

Artists

• Chuck Baird, (1947–2012), American painter and performer, one of the founding members of the De'Via Deaf art movement
• Bernard Bragg, performer, writer, director, poet, and artist
• John Brewster Jr. (1766–1854) portraitist and miniaturist in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine in the Federalist period in America[10]
• Thomas Davidson, RA an English painter specializing in historical naval scenes (1842–1919)
• Walter Geikie, Scottish painter
• Francisco Goya (1746-1828) Spanish painter, became deaf at age 47.[11]
• David Hockney (b. 1937), British painter[12]
• Regina Olson Hughes, American Illustrator
• Jan (born 1939) Spanish comic artist. Deaf since age 6.[13]
• Betty G. Miller, American artist
• Maurycy Minkowski, deaf Polish Jewish artist (1881/2–1930)
• Juan Fernández Navarrete, Spanish Mannerist painter (1526–79)
• Albert Newsam (1809–1864) lithographer, and student of Catlin[14]
• Will J. Quinlan, American artist, etcher, painter
• Slava Raškaj (1877–1906), Croatian painter
• Granville Redmond, American painter, actor
• Alfred Thomson, an English artist and Olympic Gold Medalist (1894–1979)
• Douglas Tilden, American sculptor

Musicians

• Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer and pianist, who acquired almost complete deafness by age 44.[15]
• Mabel Hubbard Bell, wife of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell
• William Boyce, a British composer who acquired deafness in his late 40s[16]
• Sean Forbes, American musician, songwriter, and rapper
• TL Forsberg, American avant-garde rock singer who identifies as deaf[17]
• Evelyn Glennie, Scottish percussionist, won Grammy for Best Musician in a Recording 1989: Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion[18]
• Mandy Harvey, American jazz singer and a finalist of America's Got Talent (season 12)
• Bob Hiltermann, drummer for Beethoven's Nightmare, an all-deaf rock band
• Geraldine Lawhorn, musician, actress, instructor and first deaf-blind African-American person to earn a college degree
• Signmark, Finnish rap artist
• Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer who became completely deaf at age 50[19]
• Mariko Takamura, deaf Japanese musician

Scientists

• Guillaume Amontons, French inventor and physicist
• John Goodricke, (1764–1786), English astronomer
• Annie Jump Cannon, Female Harvard astronomer recognized for her work in stellar classification
• Henrietta Swan Leavitt, American astronomer

Sports

• Cecilia Hanhikoski, Finnish snowboarder and futsal player
• Ashley Fiolek, American motocross racer and stunt actress
• Yehuda Gruenfeld, Israeli chess grandmaster
• Gerry Hughes, British sports sailor
• Jim Kyte, Canadian hockey player
• Rebecca Macree, British squash player
• Robert Marchand, American masters cyclist
• Caleb McDuff, British go-kart racer
• Mike Murphy, American athletic trainer
• Kitty O'Neil, American race driver and stunt actress
• Aimee Walker Pond, American gymnast
• Marie Roethlisberger, American gymnast
• Lana Skeledžija, Croatian sport shooter
• Melanie Stabel, German sport shooter
• Joe Swail, Northern Irish snooker player
• Laurentia Tan, Singaporean Paralympic equestrian
• Tone Tangen Myrvoll, Norwegian runner, skier, and orienteer
• Margareta Trnková-Hanne, Czech sprinter and tennis player
• Ildikó Újlaky-Rejtő, Hungarian fencer and Olympic champion
• Boris Verlinsky, Ukrainian-Russian chess master
• Melinda Vernon, Australian distance runner, triathlete and swimmer
• Heidi Zimmer, American mountaineer

American football

• Albert Berg, American footballer player, coach, and writer
• Derrick Coleman, American fullback and Super Bowl champion
• Gilbert O. Erickson, American college footballer player and photographer
• Bonnie Sloan, American defensive tackle and first deaf person drafted to the National Football League
• Kenny Walker, American gridiron player and first deaf player in the Canadian Football League
• Blaise Winter, American coach and former defensive end in the NFL

Association football

• Eunate Arraiza, Spanish defender/midfielder
• Cliff Bastin, English forward for Arsenal
• Jozo Bogdanović, Croatian forward
• Stan Burton, English winger
• Memnos Costi, English footballer and television presenter
• Damir Desnica, Croatian forward
• Matthew Eby, American defender/midfielder
• Thomas Elliott, British forward
• Albert Gardner, English midfielder
• Danielle Gibbons, English goalkeeper
• Andy Greig, Scottish goalkeeper
• Stefan Markolf, German defender
• Athiel Mbaha, Namibian goalkeeper and international at the Africa Cup of Nations
• Simon Ollert, German forward
• John Tosswill, English forward

Athletics

• Nele Alder-Baerens, German distance runner
• Natasha Bacchus, Canadian sprinter
• Dean Barton-Smith, Australian decathlete
• Edie Boyer, American discus thrower
• Suslaidy Girat, Cuban sprinter and jumper
• Emilija Manninen, Estonian hurdler
• Marie-Paule Miller, French heptathlete
• Amy-Lea Mills, Australian javelin thrower
• Dawn Moncrieffe, Canadian middle-distance runner
• Trude Raad, Norwegian thrower
• Ruth Taubert Seeger, American sprinter and jumper
• Evgenii Shvetcov, Russian Paralympic runner
• Vyacheslav Skomorokhov, Ukrainian-Soviet hurdler
• Gerhard Sperling, East German racewalker
• Beryl Wamira, Kenyan sprinter
• Rita Windbrake, German runner

Baseball

• Michael Cuddyer, American outfielder and two-time MLB All-Star
• Dummy Deegan, American pitcher for the New York Giants
• Ed Dundon, American pitcher and first deaf player in Major League Baseball
• Tyson Gillies, Canadian outfielder and Pan American Games gold medalist
• Dummy Hoy, American center fielder and most accomplished deaf player in Major League Baseball
• Yuya Ishii, Japanese pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball
• Dummy Leitner, American pitcher and Major League Baseball player
• Dummy Lynch, American second baseman and World War II veteran
• Thomas Lynch, American pitcher
• Curtis Pride, American outfielder and coach
• Dick Sipek, American outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds
• Dummy Taylor, American pitcher and 1905 World Series winner

Basketball

• Lance Allred, American forward and first legally-deaf NBA player
• Buffalo Silents, a 1920s American all-deaf team
• Tamika Catchings, American small forward, 2012 WNBA champion and four-time Olympic gold medallist
• Wissam Constantin, Lebanese forward and first deaf player in the Lebanese Basketball League
• Cecilia Ferm, Swedish international player
• Emma Meesseman, Belgian player in the WNBA
• Ronda Jo Miller, American player and first deaf woman to try out for the WNBA
• Miha Zupan, Slovenian power forward

Cricket

• Anjan Bhattacharjee, Indian first-class bowler for Bihar
• Lance Cairns, New Zealand all-rounder and international test player
• John Hodgkins, English first-class all-rounder for Nottinghamshire
• Charlie McLeod, Australian all-rounder and international test player
• Imran Sheikh, former captain of the deaf Indian national team
• Baba Sidhaye, Indian first-class all-rounder and first national-level deaf-mute player
• Umesh Valjee, former captain of the deaf English national team

Swimming

• Cindy-Lu Bailey, Australian swimmer and 29-time Deaflympic medalist
• Peggy de Villiers, South African swimmer and Deaflympian
• Natalia Deeva, Belarusian swimmer and four-time Deaflympic champion
• Gertrude Ederle, American Olympic medalist and the first woman to swim the English channel
• Jeff Float, American swimmer and Olympic and world champion
• Reed Gershwind, American swimmer and 30-time Deaflympic medalist
• Danielle Joyce, British swimmer and two-time Deaflympic champion
• Matthew Klotz, American swimmer and deaf world record holder
• Cornell Loubser, South African swimmer and Deaflympic medalist
• Jill Diana Lovett, British swimmer and Deaflympian
• Rebecca Meyers, American swimmer and visually-impaired Paralympic champion
• Linda Neumann, German swimmer and Deaflympic medalist
• Terence Parkin, South African swimmer and Olympic and world medalist
• Alexandra Polivanchuk, Swedish swimmer and deaf world record holder
• Anna Polivanchuk, Swedish swimmer and deaf world record holder, sister of Alexandra
• Taranath Narayan Shenoy, Indian deaf-blind open water swimmer and swimmer of the English channel

Tennis

• Vidisha Baliyan, Indian tennis player and beauty pageant contestant
• Emily Hangstefer, American tennis player and Deaflympian
• Jafreen Shaik, Indian tennis player and Deaflympian
• Mario Kargl, Austrian tennis player and former deaf world champion
• Lee Duck-hee, South Korean tennis player and twice competitor on the ATP Challenger Tour
• Gábor Máthé, Hungarian champion and Deaflympic champion
• Angela Mortimer, British tennis player and multiple Grand Slam winner
• Barbara Oddone, Italian tennis player and multiple Deaflympic champion
• Prithvi Sekhar, Indian tennis player and Deaflympian

Winter sports

• Jenny Berrigan, American snowboarder
• Brenda Davidson, Canadian curler
• Emma Logan, Canadian curler
• Jakub Nosek, Czech bobsledder
• Margarita Noskova, Russian snowboarder
• Anna Surmilina, Russian snowboarder
• Jack Ulrich, Canadian ice hockey player
• Lauren Weibert, American snowboarder

Writers

• Kathleen L. Brockway, author, historian, and deaf rights' activist
• Willy Conley, playwright, actor, photographer
• Eugen Relgis, Romanian humanist writer and political activist
• Michael Chorost, writer and technologist who wrote on his experience of cochlear implants[20]
• Harold MacGrath, American author
• Pierre de Ronsard, French poet
• Laura C. Redden Searing,(1893–1923), Civil war journalist, biographer, and poet
• Louise Stern, writer and artist
• Ted Supalla, researcher and professor
• Clayton Valli, deaf linguist and ASL poet

Other occupations

• Dimitra Arapoglou, a deaf member of the Greek parliament, from 2007 to 2009
• Marla Berkowitz, ASL interpreter; as of 2020, the only Deaf ASL interpreter in the US state of Ohio
• Earnest Elmo Calkins, a deaf American advertising executive who pioneered the use of art in advertising
• Nyle DiMarco, season 22 Dancing with the Stars champion and 2015 winner of America's Next Top Model
• Claudia L. Gordon, lawyer
• Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk
• Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA who became completely deaf age 17.[21]
• Mojo Mathers (b. 1966), New Zealand politician
• Florence Lewis May, American textile curator
• Roger Demosthenes O'Kelly (b. 1880), deaf-blind black lawyer, Yale alumnus
• Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw (b. 1912), British mathematician and politician
• François d'Orléans, Prince of Joinville, French prince and naval commander
• Andrew Phillips, lawyer
• Punk Chef, celebrity deaf chef from the UK
• Elizabeth Steel, the earliest record of a deaf person in Australia
• Sue Thomas, first deaf person to work as an undercover investigator doing lip-reading of suspects for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russian rocket scientist and pioneer of space exploration studies
• Heather Whitestone, first deaf woman to win the title of Miss America
• Nellie Zabel Willhite, pilot
• David Wright, South African-born British poet
• Judith Wright, Australian poet

Fictional characters

• Connie, a deaf character that fights zombies in AMC's The Walking Dead series.
• Echo, a deaf Native American martial artist.
• Drury Lane, a deaf detective written by Ellery Queen.
• Jade Lovall, a partially deaf nurse in the BBC medical drama Casualty

References

1. How Does Being Hard of Hearing Differ from Being Deaf?. Healthline. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
2. "Deafness and hearing loss Fact sheet N°300". March 2015. Archived from the original on 16 May 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
3. Madeleine Chapman, Jesper Dammeyer, The Significance of Deaf Identity for Psychological Well-Being, The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, April 2017, Pages 187–194, https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enw073
4. hsdb.k12.hi.us./about-hsdb/hsdb-history
5. Chow, Andrew R. (2019-05-11). "The Society's Sean Berdy on A.S.L. Representation, Teen Activism and His Buzzy New Netflix Drama". Time. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
6. Moore, Matthew S.; Panara, Robert (1996). "Chapter 54: Linda Bove". Great Deaf Americans : The Second Edition. Rochester, N.Y. : Deaf Life Press. pp. 352–357.
7. Hetrick, Adam (2012-05-06). Tribes Actor Russell Harvard Finds His Pack. Playbill. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
8. Bergan, Ronald (2010-11-29). https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/nov/29/leslie-nielsen-obituary Leslie Nielsen obituary ]. The Guardian. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
9. Stern, Shoshannah (2020-05-08). Mothering While Deaf in a Newly Quiet World. New York Times. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
10. Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. (1999). Who Was Who in American Art, 1564–1975: 400 Years of Artists in America. Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press. p. 437. ISBN 0932087558.
11. The Deafness of Goya – Part I in hearinghealthmatters.org
12. Swerling, Gabriella (2017-09-28). David Hockney: Hearing loss has helped me paint better. The Times. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
13. Martínez, Antonio.Interview with Jan, DifuSord number. 2 (in Spanish)
14. Pyatt, Joseph O. (1868). Memoir of Albert Newsam, Deaf Mute Artist. Philadelphia: "Printed for the Author".
15. Bento RF. Beethoven's Deafness, the Defiance of a Genius. Int. Arch. Otorhinolaryngol. 2009;13(3):317-321.
16. Beechey, Gwilym, William Boyce, and J. H. "Memoirs of Dr. William Boyce." The Musical Quarterly 57, no. 1 (1971): 87-106. Accessed July 10, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/740872.
17. Catsoulis, Jeannette (2010-04-08). Deaf, and Trying to Make It in Showbiz. New York Times. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
18. I’m a Grammy Award Winning Musician and I’m Deaf. Evelyn Glennie (2019-05-28). Retrieved 2020-07-10.
19. H Dominic & W Stiles (2012-01-06). [https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2012/01/06/deafness-and-tinnitus-in-a-musician-bedrich-smetana/ Deafness and tinnitus in a musician – Bedřich Smetana. UCL. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
20. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (2005-07-14). Michael Chorost and the cyborg memoir.Institute for the Future. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
21. Kehe, Marjorie (2012-03-12). That 'Crazy Daisy' who started the Girl Scouts . Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2020-07-10.

Further reading

• Lang, Harry G. Fighting in the Shadows: Untold Stories of Deaf People in the Civil War (Washington: Gallaudet University Press, 2017), xv, 255 pp.
• Sonnenstrahl, Deborah M. Deaf Artists in America, Colonial to Contemporary. San Diego: Dawnsign Press, 2002.