Most Famous Japanese Athletes

Japan has produced 688 notable athletes throughout history, led by Keisuke Honda. Rankings are drawn from a cross-verified academic dataset of 152,953 people.

Top Ranked

  1. Keisuke Honda — Japanese Football (Born 1986) , ranked #5565
  2. Ichiro Suzuki — Japanese Baseball (Born 1973) , ranked #6704
  3. Hideo Kojima — Japanese Game (Born 1963) , ranked #8748
  4. Shinji Okazaki — Japanese Football (Born 1986) , ranked #9204
  5. Yuto Nagatomo — Japanese Football (Born 1986) , ranked #9290
  6. Hiroshi Kiyotake — Japanese Football (Born 1989) , ranked #9994
  7. Atsuto Uchida — Japanese Football (Born 1988) , ranked #10598
  8. Takashi Inui — Japanese Football (Born 1988) , ranked #10882
  9. Akebono Tarō — Japanese Rikishi (Born 1969) , ranked #11224
  10. Makoto Hasebe — Japanese Football (Born 1984) , ranked #11423
  11. Kei Nishikori — Japanese Player (Born 1989) , ranked #12038
  12. Takashi Usami — Japanese Football (Born 1992) , ranked #12325
  13. Yoshito Ōkubo — Japanese Football (Born 1982) , ranked #13182
  14. Junichi Inamoto — Japanese Football (Born 1979) , ranked #13612
  15. Yoichiro Kakitani — Japanese Football (Born 1990) , ranked #13879
  16. Mike Havenaar — Japanese Football (Born 1987) , ranked #14215
  17. Shinji Ono — Japanese Football (Born 1979) , ranked #14484
  18. Yu Darvish — Japanese Baseball (Born 1986) , ranked #15134
  19. Gichin Funakoshi — Japanese Karate (1868–1957) , ranked #15519
  20. Hiroki Sakai — Japanese Football (Born 1990) , ranked #16260