List of American mariners

Notable members of the United States Merchant Marine have included:


 * Jim Bagby Jr. – Major League Baseball pitcher
 * Raymond Bailey – actor
 * Alvin Baldus – former Democratic member of Congress
 * Nathaniel Bowditch – author
 * L. Brent Bozell Jr. – conservative activist and Catholic writer
 * Lenny Bruce – comedian and poet
 * Gordon Canfield – Republican congressman from New Jersey
 * Alfonso J. Cervantes – forty-third Mayor of Saint Louis, Missouri
 * Granville Conway – public servant, Presidential Medal for Merit recipient
 * Harvey Cox – preeminent theologian and professor at Harvard Divinity School
 * Joseph Curran – labor leader
 * Richard Henry Dana Jr. – author
 * Deborah Doane Dempsey – first American female master to command a cargo ship sailing internationally
 * Dan Devine – football coach
 * Peter Falk – actor
 * Eric Fleming – actor
 * James Garner – actor
 * Allen Ginsberg – poet
 * Seamon Glass – actor and author
 * Harry Guardino – actor
 * Woody Guthrie – musician
 * David Hackworth – retired United States Army colonel and prominent military journalist
 * Sterling Hayden – actor and author
 * Chuck Hayward – actor and stuntman
 * Don Hewitt – television news producer and executive
 * Chuck Hicks – actor and stuntman
 * Sadie O. Horton – female mariner who spent World War II working aboard a coastwise U.S. Merchant Marine barge, and posthumously received official veteran’s status for her wartime service in 2017, becoming the first recorded female Merchant Marine veteran of World War II.
 * Cisco Houston – folk singer
 * Richard Jaeckel – actor
 * Cornelius Johnson – Olympic medal-winning high jumper
 * Irving Johnson – author, adventurer and sail training pioneer
 * John Paul Jones – naval officer
 * Jack Kerouac – author
 * Daniel Keyes – author and professor
 * Joseph Stanley Kozlowski, AB – portrait and watercolor artist
 * Leonard LaRue – naval officer who saved 14,000 lives during the Korean War
 * Jack London – author
 * Louis L'Amour – author
 * Jack Lord – actor
 * Jerry Marcus – cartoonist of comic strip Trudy
 * Steve McQueen – actor
 * Herman Melville – author
 * Ray Montgomery – actor
 * Hugh Mulzac – master mariner and civil rights activist
 * James Nachtwey – photojournalist and war photographer
 * Lloyd Nolan – actor
 * George H. O'Brien Jr. – Medal of Honor recipient in Korean War
 * Jeremiah O'Brien – captain of the privateer Unity in the first battle of the Revolutionary War
 * Carroll O'Connor – actor
 * Jack Paar – created TV talk show; was replaced by Johnny Carson
 * Mary Patten (1837–1861) – only woman to take command of a clipper ship after the captain was incapacitated
 * Donn Pearce – author and journalist
 * Richard Phillips – held hostage by pirates and later rescued
 * Richard Scott Prather – mystery novelist
 * Denver Pyle – actor
 * Bill Raisch – actor, stuntman, dancer and acting coach
 * Joseph Resnick – Democratic congressman from New York
 * Nelson Riddle – bandleader, arranger and orchestrator
 * Cliff Robertson – actor and aviator
 * Ernie Schroeder – comic book artist
 * Otto Scott – journalist and author
 * Hubert Selby Jr. – author
 * Frank Sinkwich – 1942 Heisman Trophy winner
 * Gary Snyder – poet
 * Joseph D. Stewart – Vice Admiral, Superintendent of the United States Merchant Marine Academy
 * Montfort Stokes – Democratic Senator
 * Oliver Stone – three-time Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter
 * Celia Sweet – first female pilot in San Diego Bay, 1912
 * Paul Teutul Sr. – founder of Orange County Choppers motorcycle manufacturer
 * Jim Thorpe – Olympic athlete
 * Eliza Thorrold – licensed tugboat master, San Francisco Bay, 1897
 * Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens) – author; inland waters
 * Dave Van Ronk – folk singer nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street"
 * Clint Walker – actor
 * Jack Warden – actor
 * John S. Watson – New Jersey politician
 * Ted Weems – bandleader and musician
 * Carlia Wescott – first American woman to be granted marine engineer's license, 1922
 * Haskell Wexler – Academy Award-winning cinematographer, director, producer and screenwriter
 * Nedd Willard (born 1928) – writer, artist, journalist
 * Andy Williams – singer
 * Charles Williams – writer of hardboiled crime fiction
 * Robin Wilson – science fiction author and editor, and former President of California State University, Chico
 * Charles Armijo Woodruff – 11th Governor of American Samoa