List of people known as the father or mother of something

• 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.)
• Søren 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 Varèse - 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

• 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