The fathers of...
(alphabetically by surname)- Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard - the father of Danish painting
- Steve Allen - the father of the television talk show
- Eric Allman - the father of modern Internet e-mail
- Peter Artedi - the father of ichthyology
- Philip Astley - the father of the modern circus
- Stephen F. Austin - the father of Texas
- Leo Baekeland - the father of plastic
- Alexander Graham Bell - the father of the telephone
- Edward Bernays - the father of public relations
- William Brown - the father of Argentinian Navy
- James Busby - the father of the Australian wine industry
- Nolan Bushnell - the father of the video arcade industry
- Santiago Ramón y Cajal - the father of Neuroscience
- Santa Gomez wilfredo-father of The Protective Unconcious theory
- John Calvin - the father of Protestantism
- John Cassavetes - the father of American independent film
- Vinton G. Cerf - the father of the Internet
- Anton Cermak - the father of Chicago's great Democratic machine
- Peter Cook - the father of British satire
- John Nelson Darby - the father of dispensationalism
- Sheikh Sayid Darwish - the father of Arab popular music
- William Morris Davis - the father of American geography
- Diophantus - the father of Algebra
- Lee De Forest - self-claimed "father of radio" (inventor of Audion amplifier tube, a key element).
- Allen B. Dumont - the father of modern TV
- John Boyd Dunlop - the father of the modern tire
- Quintus Ennius - the father of Roman poetry
- Brian Eno - the father of ambient music
- Robert Ettinger - the father of cryonics
- Luis Alberto Ferré - the father of the movement for Puerto Rican statehood
- Reginald Fessenden - The father of Radio Broadcasting
- Charles Fort - The father of Modern Paranormalism
- Gottlob Frege - the father of modern mamatical logic
- Sigmund Freud - The father of psychoanalysis
- Galileo Galilei - the father of modern astronomy
- Galileo Galilei - the father of the Scientific method
- Gandhi - father of the nation (India)
- Gorgias - the father of systematic study of rhetoric
- James Gosling - the father of Java programming language
- Ben Graham - The father of Modern Security Analysis
- Thomas Graham - The father of colloid chemistry
- David Wark Griffith - the father of film grammar
- WC Handy - The father of the blues
- Ben Harney - the father of ragtime
- Joseph Haydn - the father of the modern orchestra
- Herodotus - the father of history
- Hippocrates - the father of medicine
- James Hutton - the father of modern geology
- Fredrick Jahn - the father of gymnastics
- Bill James - the father of Sabermetrics
- Thomas Jefferson - the father of archaeology
- Theodore Judah - the father of the First Transcontinental Railroad (U.S.)
- Sřren Kierkegaard - the father of existentialism
- Abraham Kuyper - the father of Dutch neo-calvinism
- Sydney M. Lamb - the father of stratificational grammar
- Antoine Lavoisier - the father of modern chemistry
- Jacques-Donatien Le Ray - a French The father of the American Revolution
- John Lennard-Jones - the father of modern computational chemistry
- J.C.R. Licklider - the father of artificial intelligence
- Joseph Lister - the father of modern antisepsis
- Raymond Loewy - the father of industrial design
- Professor Longhair - the father of funk
- James Madison - The father of the United States Constitution
- Guglielmo Marconi - the father of radio
- Herbert Marcuse - the father of the new left
- George Mason - The father of the Bill of Rights
- John McLoughlin - The father of Oregon (by vote of the Oregon legislature)
- Daniel arap Moi - The father of Kenya's independence
- Gregor Mendel - the father of genetics
- Spike Milligan - the father of modern British comedy
- Billy Mitchell - the father of U.S. Air Force
- Robert Moon - the father of the ZIP code
- Muddy Waters - The father of Chicago blues
- John von Neumann - the father of game theory
- Abu Nidal - literally translates to "the father of struggle"
- Sondre Norheim - the father of skiing
- Henry Parkes - the father of Federation (Australia)
- Fredrik Pacius - The father of Finnish music
- Charles Peirce - the father of modern semiotics
- Jozef Pilsudski - the grandfather (of Poles)
- Camille Pissarro - The father of Impressionism
- Christopher Polhem - the father of Swedish engineering
- Pythagoras - the father of numbers
- Hyman G. Rickover The father of the Nuclear Navy (U.S.)
- Louis Riel - The father of Manitoba
- Jimmie Rodgers - the father of country music
- Paul Sandby - the father of English watercolor painting
- Ferdinand de Saussure - the father of modern linguistics
- Moritz Schlick - the father of logical positivism
- Claude E. Shannon - the father of information theory
- Ambrose Sevier - The father of Arkansas Statehood
- Adam Smith - the father of modern economics
- John C. Stennis - The father of America's Modern Navy
- Sun Yat-sen - The father of the nation of the Republic of China
- Edward Teller - the father of the hydrogen bomb
- Tertullian - The father of the Western Church
- Charles Tupper - The father of Canadian Confederation
- Alan Turing - the father of computer science
- J. R. R. Tolkien - the father of the modern high fantasy genre
- Paolo Uccello - the father of the art of perspective
- Edgar Varčse - the father of electronic music
- John Wanamaker - The father of the U.S. department store
- George Washington - the father of the United States
- Isaac Watts - The father of English Hymnody
- John B. Watson - the father of behaviorism
- Wright brothers - the fathers of aviation
- Eliezer Ben Yehuda - the father of modern Hebrew language
The mothers of...
- Jane Addams - mother of Social Work
- Susan B. Anthony - The Mother of Us All (title of Virgil Thomson/Gertrude Stein opera)
- Isadora Duncan - the mother of modern dance
- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela - the mother of the nation (of South Africa)
- The Blessed Virgin Mary - in Christianity, the mother of God
- Lillian Moller Gilbreth - the mother of modern management
- Mary Harris Jones - better known as Mother Jones. Also called "Grandmother of All Agitators".
- Alice Waters - the mother of California cuisine
