List of people known as the father or mother of something

The following alphabetical lists includes men and women commonly known as the father or mother of something. Whether each of these persons is genuinely the father or mother of this thing is a matter of opinion.

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• J.B. Danquah - The father of the political opposition of Ghana
• John Nelson Darby - The father of dispensationalism
• Nicéphore Niépce & Louis Daguerre - The fathers of the photograph
• John Dalton - The father of chemistry
• Charles Darwin - The father of evolutionary biology
• William Morris Davis - The father of American geography
• Guy de Chauliac - The father of modern surgery and hospitals
• Lee De Forest - The father of radio
• Democritus - The father of atomic theory
• René Descartes - The father of modern philosophy
• Friedrich Diercks - The father of immigrants
• Diophantus - The father of Algebra
• Walt Disney - The father of the animation industry
• Vasily Dokuchaev - The father of soil science
• Tommy Douglas - A, or the, father of medicare in Canada
• Alberto Santos-Dumont - The father of aviation
• Allen B. Dumont - The father of modern TV
• Isadora Duncan - The mother of modern dance
• John Boyd Dunlop - The father of the modern tire