This is a list of East Frisian people who are important to the region of East Frisia and its history in that they have played a key role in the region or are otherwise renowned and closely linked to East Frisia.

Other East Frisian lists

• List of counts of East Frisia
• List of countesses of East Frisia

Art and culture

• Ludolf Bakhuizen, artist
• Eggerik Beninga, Frisian chronicler
• Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, composer
• Rudolf Eucken, German Nobel prize winner for literature, 1908
• Martin Faber, architect, artist and cartographer
• Recha Freier, Swiss-born playwright, holder of the Israeli State Prize
• Hans-Joachim Hespos, composer
• the family of Ub Iwerks
• Hermann Lübbe, philosopher
• Henri Nannen, publisher
• Uwe Rosenberg, game inventor

Film, TV and radio

• Heiko Engelkes, journalist, ARD correspondent in Paris, author
• Okka Gundel, presenter on Sportschau and tagesschau24
• Eva Herman, presenter, newscaster and playwright
• Wolfgang Petersen, Hollywood director of inter alia Das Boot and Troy
• Helma Sanders-Brahms, director

History

• Edzard the Great, East Frisian count
• Klaus Störtebeker, pirate during the time of the Hanseatic League
• Balthasar von Esens, pirate
• Max Windmüller, German-Jewish resistance fighter against Nazism
• Dodo zu Innhausen und Knyphausen, military commander during the Thirty Years' War

Musicians and comedians

• Carl Carlton (German musician), rock musician
• Karl Dall, comedian, actor, entertainer
• H.P. Baxxter, real name: Hans-Peter Geerdes, front man of the techno band Scooter
• Al Shean, US American-German comedian
• Theodore Thomas, born Theodor Thomas, musician, composer, founder of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
• Otto Waalkes, comedian, actor

Politics

• Gesine Agena, politician and speaker for the Grüne Jugend
• Gitta Connemann, MdB
• Garrelt Duin, former leader of the SPD in Lower Saxony, MdB

Sport

• Christian Alder, footballer
• Dieter Eilts, footballer
• Karsten Fischer, footballer
• Bernd Flessner, windsurfer (15-time German champion)
• Heidi Hartmann, world boxing champion
• Marco Kutscher, showjumper (European and Olympic bronze medallist)
• Silvia Rieger, track and field athlete (hurdles)
• Ferydoon Zandi, footballer

Theology

• Menso Alting
• David Fabricius, theologian, important amateur astronomer and cartographer
• Eduard Norden, philologist and religious historian

Science

• Eggerik Beninga, chronicler
• Hermann Conring, legal scholar
• Ubbo Emmius, pastor, historian and founder of the University of Groningen
• Rudolf Eucken, philosopher
• Johannes Fabricius, one of the discoverers of sunspots
• Wilhelm von Freeden, German mathematician, scientist and oceanographer, founder of the North German Hydrographic Office in Hamburg
• Rudolf von Jhering, German lawyer
• Hermann Lübbe, philosopher
• Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, sports doctor and doctor to the Germany National Football Team and FC Bayern Munich
• Johann Christian Reil, doctor and professor

Other people

• Jan van Koningsveld, world champion in mental arithmetic
• Minnie Schönberg, mother of the Marx Brothers, who came from Dornum
• Tamme Hanken, vet and TV presenter

Literature

• Martin Tielke (ed.): Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland. Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich, 1993 (in Fula), 5 volumes, Vol. 4, 2007.