This is a non-exhaustive list of people who were born in the Occitania historical territory, or notable people from other regions of France or Europe with Occitan roots, or notable people from other regions of France or Europe who have other significant links with the historical region. One may note that this article, 'Notable people from Occitania', is compound for a large part of personalities from the historical region of Occitania and/or who own an Occitan patronym and/or who lived for the major part of their lives in the Occitania historical territory, yet an important part of the list members still can't be considered as belonging to the Occitan historical heritage, mainly due to their mother-tongue, French.
Writers, playwrights and poets
Petronius, courtier during the reign of Nero from Massalia, author of the Satyricon. Ausonius, 4th century Roman poet from Burdigalia. Bertran de Born, 12th century troubadour. William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, early troubadour and knight crusader. Marcabru, early 12th century troubadour. Monge de Montaudon, 12th century troubadour. Peire Vidal, early 13th century troubadour. Jaufre Rudel, major troubadour and crusader. Peire d'Alvernhe, second half of the 12th century troubadour. Comtessa de Dia, 12th century trobairitz (female troubadour). Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, 13th century troubadour and knight crusader during the Fourth Crusade. Arnaut Daniel, late 12th century major troubadour. Bernard de Ventadour, 12th century major troubadour. Peire Cardenal, 13th century troubadour. Antoine de la Sale, 15th century courtier, educator and writer. Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Poet Laureate of Francis I of France. Augièr Galhard, 16th century writer. Clément Marot, 16th century Renaissance poet. Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné, early 17th century Baroque poet. Bartas, 17th century poet who wrote both in French and in Occitan. Honoré d'Urfé, 17th century Pastoral writer. Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, 17th century Baroque author. La Rochefoucauld, 17th century moralist born in Paris to the famous noble Rochefoucauld family whose origins go back to Charente, where he had his residence. Théophile de Viau, 17th century Baroque poet and dramatist. Cyrano de Bergerac, 17th century novelist and playwright. He was from a Dordognaise aristocratic family from Bergerac, although he never lived there in his entire life. Fénelon, 17th century Renaissance writer. Nicolas Chamfort, 18th century poet, member of the Jacobin club. Marquis de Sade, 18th century aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer. Born in Paris, he was the heir of the Provençal Sade house, one of the oldest family of the region. He was thus Lord of Saumane, Lacoste and Co-Lord of Mazan where he had several residences, including the famous Château de Lacoste. Marquis de Pompignan, 18th century man of letter. Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, 18th century moralist. Baron de Montesquieu, an important writer and philosopher of the 18th century Enlightenment. Jean-François Marmontel, historian and novelist, member of the Encyclopédistes movement. Fleury Mesplet, founder of the Montreal Gazette (1778). André Chénier, late 18th century poet and figure of French Romanticism. Jansemin, 19th century Occitan language poet. Comte de Lautréamont, 19th century poet born in Uruguay to François Ducasse (consular officer) and his wife Jacquette-Célestine Davezac, both from Southwestern France from which they returned when Ducasse was thirteen, in Tarbes and later in Pau where the poet begun to write his first works. Émile Augier, 19th century dramatist. Honoré de Balzac, 19th century realist writer. Born in Tours, he was the son of Bernard François Balssa, an administrator from the Tarn department in South West France, who was despatched to Tours to coordinate supplies for the Army during the Directory. François changed his name to the more noble sounding Balzac, and his son Honoré later added — without official recognition — the nobiliary particle: "de".Robb, 4, 167–68 According to André Maurois and Philibert Auberrand, the original family name Balssa came from the radical bals which in Occitan means "steep rock".Prométhée ou la vie de Balzac, 1965. .Le père d'Honoré de Balzac dans: Mémoires d'un passant. Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1893. . Another commonly admitted theory is that Balssa came from the Occitan balsan, derived from Late Latin balteanus, describing a horse with white patches on its paws. André Antoine, actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic as well as one of the leading member of the Naturalist movement. Théophile Gautier, 19th century poet and writer. Jules Vallès, 19th century writer. Émile Gaboriau, 19th century writer, journalist and novelist. Jules Laforgue, 19th century poet. Maurice de Guérin, 19th century poet. Alphonse Daudet, 19th century novelist. Pierre Loti, 19th century novelist and naval officer. Frédéric Mistral, 19th century and early 20th century Occitan-language poet and 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature winner. Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral chose her pen name after him. Théodore Aubanel, 19th century poet. Edmond Rostand, late 19th century playwright and novelist. Charles Maurras, late 19th century and 20th century influential poet, author and critic. Marguerite Genès 20th century woman of letters and teacher who wrote in Occitan and French. Saint-Pol-Roux, 20th century poet. Paul Valéry, 20th century poet. Jean Paulhan, 20th century writer and intellectual. Henri Bosco, 20th century writer. Pierre Reverdy, 20th century poet. André Gide, 20th century writer and 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Paris, his family was from Uzès, in the Gard department. He was from an old Protestant family from Southern France. His father Paul Gide and his uncle Charles Gide, were both born in Uzès. Gide is a popular last name in the Gard and Bouches du Rhône departments. Francis Jammes, 20th century lyrical poet. Jean Giraudoux, 20th century novelist, essayist and playwright. Jules Romains, 20th century poet and writer, founder of the Unanimism literary movement. Francis Ponge, 20th century poet and essayist. Léon Bloy, Christian writer. Jules Supervielle, 20th century poet. Jean Anouilh, 20th century playwright. René Char, 20th century poet. François Mauriac, 20th century writer and 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature winner. Marcel Pagnol, 20th century writer. Marguerite Duras, 20th century writer. Born Marguerite Donnadieu in French Indochina, she chose her pen name after Duras, the commune her parents originated from, in the Lot-et-Garonne department. Jean Giono, 20th century writer. Antonin Artaud, 20th century dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director. Pierre Boulle, 20th century writer. Margareta Priolo, 20th century writer, singer, teacher Françoise Sagan, 20th century novelist, screenwriter and playwright. Marcela Delpastre, 20th century Occitan-language writer. Jean Vilar, theatre director and actor, founder of the Festival d'Avignon. Anne Desclos, 20th century journalist and novelist. Joan Bodon, 20th century Occitan-language writer. His mother, Albanie Boudou (née Balssa), was said to be connected by blood with 19th century novelist Honoré de Balzac. Jean Echenoz, 20th century writer. Jean Lacouture, 20th century journalist, historian and author, known for his biographies of famous statesmen (including the likes of Charles de Gaulle and of Hô Chi Minh). J. M. G. Le Clézio, 20th century writer and poet, 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature winner. Philippe Sollers, 20th century writer and critic. René Barjavel, 20th century science fiction author. Renat Nelli, 20th century writer and founder of the Institut d'Estudis Occitans. Romain Puertolas, contemporary writer. Charles Dantzig, contemporary writer.
Philosophers and thinkers
Favorinus, Roman skeptical philosopher. Isaac the Blind, medieval kabbalistic philosopher. Samuel ibn Tibbon, medieval philosopher and doctor. Gersonides, medieval philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, physician, astronomer and astrologer. Étienne de La Boétie, judge, writer and philosopher known for his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. Michel de Montaigne, one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. Pierre Bayle, philosopher and writer, forerunner of the Encyclopedists and an advocate of the principle of the toleration of divergent beliefs, his works subsequently influenced the development of the Enlightenment. Pierre Gassendi, philosopher and mathematician. His best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicureanism atomism with Christianity. Jean Domat, rationalist jurist. Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, essayist and political theorist of the French Revolution. He also made significant theoretical contributions to the nascent social sciences. Pierre Jean George Cabanis, 18th-century physiologist and Materialist philosopher. Auguste Comte, philosopher, he was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. Charles Bernard Renouvier, 19th-century philosopher. Lou Andreas-Salomé, female psychoanalyst, born in Russia to German parents from partly Huguenot descent that originated from Avignon. Jean Hyppolite, philosopher, known for championing the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, philosopher and Jesuit priest, who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of Peking Man. He conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of noosphere. Louis Lavelle, 20th-century philosopher, influenced by Continental philosophy and Spiritualism. Jean Cavaillès, 20th-century philosopher and mathematician who took part in the French Resistance within the Libération movement. He came from a long line of Huguenot officers from the South West of France. His last name, Cavaillès, derivates from cavalh, the Occitan word for horse. Henri Lefebvre, 20th-century Marxist philosopher and sociologist. Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th-century philosopher, playwright, novelist and political activist. Born in Paris, his father originated from Thiviers, in Dordogne where young Sartre spent his holidays. His last name Sartre, came from "satre", the occitan word for "tailor". Paul Ricœur, 20th Century philosopher, best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutics. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 20th-century phenomenological philosopher. Henri Lefebvre, Marxist philosopher and sociologist. Georges Canguilhem, philosopher and physician, specialized in the philosophy of science. Georges Bataille, 20th-century influential intellectual and literary figure. Pierre Bourdieu, sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher, his sociological work is dominated by the analysis of the reproduction mechanisms of the social hierarchies. Jean Wahl, 20th century existentialist philosopher and scholar. Michel Serres, 20th-century philosopher, his works are generally focused on the scientific progress and its effect on our society. Georges Dumézil, comparative philologist. He was born in Paris to a Girondin family from Bayon. René Girard, 20th-century anthropological philosopher, historian and literary critic. Jean Carbonnier, 20th century prominent jurist. Jacques Ellul, 20th-century philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. Alain Badiou, 20th-century marxist philosopher. Born in French Morocco, his father Raymond Badiou was mayor of Toulouse from 1944 to 1958. His last name, Badiou, comes from the Occitan badiu for simpleton. Daniel Bensaïd, 20th-century Trotskyist philosopher.