John Bates may refer to:

Sportspeople

• John Bates (American football) (born 1997), American football player
• John Bates (baseball) (1868–1919), American baseball player
• Johnny Bates (baseball) (1882–1949), American baseball player
• John Bates (basketball) (1938–2015), American college basketball coach

Other people

• John Bates (technology executive), British computer scientist and businessman
• John Bates (designer) (1935–2022), English fashion designer
• John C. Bates (1842–1919), U.S. general and army chief of staff 1906
• John L. Bates (1859–1946), U.S. political figure and governor of Massachusetts 1903–1905
• John D. Bates (born 1946), federal judge appointed by George W. Bush
• John Bates (rector), eighteenth-century Senior Wrangler; see List of Wranglers of the University of Cambridge
• Big John Bates, Canadian guitarist and singer
• John Bates (neurophysiologist) (1918–1993), English neurophysiologist
• John Grenville Bates (1880–1944), co-founder of the American Kennel Club

Fictional characters

• John Bates, a character from the period drama soap opera Downton Abbey
• Johnny Bates, alter ego of Kid Marvelman