The goal here is to look at a number of Christians who are considered in some way or other notable. The point is not whether I personally find them notable but whether certain segments or large segments of the church at one time or another have found them notable. This then would provide fertile ground for studying Christian biography as a devotional or academic matter.
The original list of individuals comes from Mark Galli’s 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. WC indicates WikiChristian.
Early Church:
- Athanasius
- Augustine of Hippo
- John of Damascus
- Anselm
- Justin Martyr
- Clement of Alexandria
- Gregory Thaumaturgus
- Antony of Padua
- Ambrose of Milan
- John Chrysostom
- Benedict of Nursia
- Columbanus
- Cyril and Methodius
- Antony of Egypt
- Constantine
- Theodosius I
- Justinian I and Theodora I
- Origen
- Eusebius of Caesarea
- Jerome
- The Venerable Bede
- Ignatius of Antioch
- Polycarp
- Perpetua
- Boniface
- Irenaeus (WC)
- Gregory Nazianzus (CTT)
- Gregory Nyssa (CTT)
- Boethius (CTT)
Medieval Church:
- Thomas Aquinas
- Blaise Pascal
- Dante Alighieri
- Geoffrey Chaucer
- John Donne
- Dominic
- Francis of Assisi
- John Wycliffe
- Joan of Arc
- Francis Xavier
- Matthew Ricci
- John Eliot
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Catherine of Siena
- Thomas A Kempis
- Teresa of Avila
- John of the Cross
- Brother Lawrence
- Leo I
- Gregory the Great
- Charlemagne
- Innocent III
- Louis IX
- Pelagius I (CTT)
- Alcuin (CTT)
- John Duns Scotus (CTT)
- Julian of Norwich (CTT)
Reformation Church:
- Martin Luther
- John Calvin
- Jacob Arminius
- Ulrich Zwingli
- Ignatius of Loyola
- Thomas Becket
- John Huss
- Thomas Cranmer
- Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer
- Philip Melanchthon (CTT)
- Jacob Boehme (CTT)
Pre-Modern Church:
- Jonathan Edwards
- George Whitefield
- Charles Finney
- Dwight L. Moody
- Billy Sunday
- Richard Baxter
- John Newton
- Charles Simeon
- Lyman Beecher
- Thomas Chalmers
- John Nelson Darby
- Charles Spurgeon
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
- Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- George Frideric Handel
- John Bunyan
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- George MacDonald
- Anne Bradstreet
- Isaac Watts
- Charles Wesley
- Fanny Crosby
- T.S. Eliot
- Menno Simons
- John Knox
- John Smyth
- George Fox
- Nikolaus von Zinzendorf
- John Wesley
- Francis Asbury
- Richard Allen
- William Miller
- Alexander Campbell
- Aimee Semple McPherson
- Phoebe Palmer
- Soren Kierkegaard
- William Carey
- David Livingstone
- Hudson Taylor
- William Law
- Andrew Murray
- Oswald Chambers
- John Woolman
- William Wilberforce
- Elizabeth Fry
- Sojourner Truth
- Lord Shaftesbury
- William Gladstone
- Harriet Tubman
- Catherine Booth
- William Booth
- Walter Rauschenbusch
- Henry VIII
- Nicolas Copernicus
- William Tyndale
- John Foxe
- Francis Bacon
- Galileo Galilei
- John Lightfoot (CTT)
- Beza (CTT)
- Cromwell (CTT)
- Cotton Mather (CTT)
- Francois Fenelon (CTT)
- Madame Guyon (CTT)
- John Owen (CTT)
- William Cowper (CTT)
- David Brainerd (CTT)
- George Muller (CTT)
- Tischendorf (CTT)
- Fanny Crosby (CTT)
- Mendelssohn (CTT)
- Adam Clarke (CTT)
- F.D. Maurice (CTT)
- John Gresham Machen (CTT)
- C.T. Studd (CTT)
- Therese of Lisieux (CTT)
Modern Church:
- Karl Barth
- Billy Graham
- G.K. Chesterton
- Dorothy Sayers
- C.S. Lewis
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- F.F. Bruce (WC)
- J.B. Phillips (WC)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (WC)
- Mother Theresa (WC)
- Corrie Ten Boom (CT)
- Harold Ockenga (CT)
- John Charles Ryle (CT)
- Amy Carmichael (CT)
- Dag Hammarskjold (CTT)
- Abraham Kuyper (CTT)
- Hannah W. Smith (CTT)
- Bill Bright (CTT)
- Arthur Pink (CTT)
- Peter Marshall (CTT)
- Richard Wurmbrandt (CTT)
- Teresa of Avila (CTT)
- Watchman Nee (CTT)
- J.R.R. Tolkien (CTT)
- Francis Schaeffer (CTT)
- Pat Robertson (CTT)
Contemporary Church:
- Rick Warren*
- Jerry Falwell*
- John Wimber (WC)
- R.C. Sproul*
- Chuck Colson (CTT)