Who is the most famous non-fictional Belgian? (updated)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I posted this question 6 years ago but after running it by my Fb circle this year again I thought it was time for a renewed look at this important question for our time.

The most famous Belgians, of course, are two famous fictional characters: Hercule Poirot and Tintin.

If you don’t agree with my options, please reply and suggest your own!

Interested on your justifications, serious or otherwise, for your choice as well.

  • Rene Magritte
  • King Leopold II
  • Hergé
  • Eddie Mercx
  • Adolph Sax
  • Jacques Brel
  • Georges Simenon

0 voters

2

Surely Jean-Claude Van Damme…
…or Audrey Hepburn

3

I fixed the poll for you.
Make sure the [poll type=regular results=always chartType=bar] is on its own line.

As to the poll it should include Audrey, she was born in Belgium and spent the war years starving there and work for the resistance. Would you like me to add her and/or Jean-Claude Van Damme?

4

I would add Rubens if you’re including influential artists, but I agree that JCVD and Audrey are hands-down the most “famous” of the bunch.

5

JCVD, surely.

6

No love for Django Reinhardt?

7

Sure, if you want!

Thanks for the fix.

8

I’m really thinking of Belgians who were from a place named Belgium, which Rubens was not.

9

That’s who I would have picked as well. But it wasn’t a choice so I choose King Leopold II, even though I know next to nothing about him I do recognize his name.

Seriously, how could JCVD been left off the list?

10

Did not Audrey was from Belgium.

11

thus why i did not include her initially

12

I wanted to see who else people would vote for…

13

That makes sense, because the poll would most likely have had only one answer had you included him. Well played. Made me look up some of the others.

14

The King, if by “famous” we’re including “infamous.” Many books have been written about King Leopold II, and he’s a major figure in a conversation we’re still having about slavery, race, and colonialism. Jean-Claude Van Damme doesn’t come close, and probably is already not well known among the current teenage set.

15

This was my first thought before opening the thread.

16

After only reading the thread title, I thought of Eddy Merckx or Salvatore Adamo, mostly known only as Adamo. I don’t know if Adamo ever was popular in the US, but he was all over the place in Europe in the 70s.

17

The Expendables 2 made over 300 million, and he’s been happy to parody himself in other recent series. I think he’s pretty well known to quite a few teens.

Although let’s be serious - do you think most of today’s teens know who Leopold II is, but not JCVD?

18

I was deciding between Magritte and Brel as most famous Belgian, but I kept waffling

19

ISWYDT

(Nannybot doesn’t, though, and doesn’t think the body of my post was good enough…)

20

Had to vote Eddie Mercx but historically King Leopold II will have been much more well known through history. Not a great person to have as your most famous though.

You could argue that he most famous Belgium right now is Eden Hazard or Kevin De Bruyne!

I remember meeting some Austrians who asked me and some other Brits I was with to name the most famous Austrian. We um-ed and ah-ed, in silent agreement to deliberately avoid saying Mozart, Freud or Tesla and replied: “Hitler? Josef Fritzel?”. They were not amused, but we all ended up getting many beers and laughing about it.