Language Designer

Famous language designers listed here. Few languages are the work of just one person; but for many languages there is one person predominantly responsible for its design.

People who have designed more than one language or have made a career out of inventing languages:

NiklausWirth (see WirthLanguages; Pascal, Algol-W, Modula, Oberon, etc)
KenIverson (APL, J)

        * GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp, JavaLanguage, etc.)

WouterVanOortmerssen (must hold the record for number of languages designed)

People who have developed languages, in chronological order of their contributions:

JohnBackus (FortranLanguage)
JohnMcCarthy (LispLanguage, AlgolLanguage)
GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp)
DavidMoon (CommonLisp)
RichardPGabriel (CommonLisp)
GeraldJaySussman? (SchemeLanguage)
ChuckMoore (ForthLanguage)
ChristopherStrachey (CplLanguage)
MartinRichards (BcplLanguage)
BrianKernighan & DennisRitchie (CeeLanguage)
BjarneStroustrup (CeePlusPlus)
AlainColmerauer? (PrologLanguage)
BertrandMeyer (EiffelLanguage)
GuidoVanRossum (PythonLanguage)
LarryWall (PerlLanguage)
GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp, JavaLanguage -- with others in each case)
JohnOusterhout (ToolCommandLanguage)
AlanKay (SmalltalkLanguage)
DavidUngar (SelfLanguage)
TomStambaugh, JamesGosling (JavaLanguage--though some feel Gosling's technical contributions to Java are overstated)
- JavaHistory
YukihiroMatsumoto aka "Matz" (RubyLanguage)
CarlSassenrath (RebolLanguage)
PeterLandin (ISWIM)
RalphGriswold (SnobolLanguage, IconLanguage)

People who had influence over language design, even if they did not invent a language single-handedly:

a committee (CobolLanguage) COBOL was the work of a committee, and should not be credited to GraceHopper as is usually done; see for instance the IEEE article "The Real Creators of Cobol", March/April 2000 (Vol. 17, No. 2) p30-32, http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/so/2000/02/s2030abs.htm
JohnBackus, PeterNaur, H. Rutishauer, et al. (AlgolSixty, FpLanguage?).
RobertKowalski?, his work on automatic theorem proving created the technological underpinnings of PrologLanguage.

some of whom eventually become LanguageLawyers...