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...