I was friends with the up-and-coming actress Kate Berthold not long before she started using a different name.
A few former directors of the Michigan Department of Tranportation, a former director of the North Carolina Department of Transportation. They would know me on sight.
If I loosen the term quite a bit, I’d say that a famous pop singer from the 1970s knew of me from a couple interactions on a Facebook fan page that I’ve had with her.
If I want to cheat, I’d say Jesus.
A few years ago I would have said Alan Parsons. I was a member of his fan club back in the late '90s and we got backstage passes to his shows to hang out with the band. I’m not sure he knew my name, but he did recognize me and greet me. I’m sure that’s not true anymore, though.
These days, author Kevin J. Anderson. I chatted with him a few times at a writers’ convention back in February, and now I’m involved in a Masters’ program in Publishing that he runs.
Both of them are very cool folks. Kevin and I bonded over shared taste in music (Rush, Alan Parsons Project, and a lot of other stuff from the Seventies and Eighties).
About 30 years ago I got a job delivering pizza for a mom & pop place in downtown San Jose. One of our regular customers was Tom McEnery, who was mayor during the '80s. He came in the restaurant often, and I delivered pizza to him often. For several years. I still remember his address. I doubt he would know my name, but I’m willing to bet if I ran into him he would remember me.
There was another driver who worked there for a year or so, while he was finishing up his broadcast communications degree at San Jose State. After he graduated he got a job as a DJ at one of the local rock stations, KSJO. He adopted the moniker “Sloppy Joe.” KSJO shut down in 2004, and I think he went over to the classic rock station, KUFX. I left the Bay Area shortly after that, in 2005. I just looked him up, and it looks like he works at KSAN “The Bone” now, in San Francisco, and also teaches at SJSU! Anyway, I’m confident he would remember me. If not right away, then if his memory was jogged. 
Oh, yes. I remember you.
Fondly!!!
Heheh, of course much later I realize I misspelled his name but linked to the right name/wiki article. No idea how I did that, but he’s such a nice guy he wouldn’t care for a second.
My dad was in the USAF. Back in the '70s, he served in the same squadron as a man named Thomas Schaefer. Of course, people get moved around all the time in the military. Col. Schaefer got a pretty plum assignment; a diplomatic posting to a foreign embassy.
In Tehran.
He was the ranking military officer among the hostages. About a year after his release, he moved back to the area and was on my paper route. He recognized my last name and we chatted a bit.
He died in 2016; a google search brings up obituaries in the New York Times and Washington Post.
Normally I can never think of anyone. But I just remembered that I graduated high school with someone who won a state-level beauty pageant. And we were previously in band together.
I’m friends with John Thomas Griffith, guitarist and vocalist with Cowboy Mouth and formerly Red Rockers. Not super-close, but we hang out a few times a year.
A Sr. VP at CNN would probably remember my name, although we haven’t spoken in years. We ran against each other in mock elections in 8th grade. 
I know a NYT-bestselling author. We first met at an Oberlin alumni event and hit it off; we get together now and then. It’s fun to talk with him about his books after I’ve read ‘em.
I’m friends with Pittsburgh Steeler Hall of Famer and all around nice guy #58 Jack Lambert.
A few years ago I had something he wanted to borrow, so we met up at a bar. I arrived shortly after him. When I walked in, a friend rushed over and told me Jack Lambert was in the house and I should be cool and not bother him. Jack saw me, came over and shook my hand, then hugged me. One of the highlights of my life.
Mark Begich, who was Mayor of Anchorage and, briefly, the senator who took Ted Stevens’ place in WDC. But, after 15 years, he may not remember me.
The late lead singer of Alice in Chains knew me. (I was briefly his lawyer). But, as you may know, he died.
The current Governor of Washington know me. We’re not “friends,” but we talk when we run into each other.
I went to high school with, and participated in various musical and theatrical extra-curricular activities, with E. Forbes Smiley Jr., better known as The Map Thief.
I was a TA for Michael Dukakis in grad school (he taught at Harvard for a while). Alas, he probably remembers me in a bad way: He gave me and another TA an essay to read and asked us what we thought about it; I harshly dismissed it as trite and lacking original thought. A few days later I learned that the author of the work I had trashed had been a very close friend of Mike’s, and had recently died in a car accident. Also, I was a bit overwhelmed by my studies and was probably a rather crappy TA. Let’s just say I never worked the connection to ask for recommendations from him.
Well, I keep getting reminded of ones - I went to school with a popular YA author, and we recently reconnected, though it was more of “oh, hi, how are you?” exchange and that was about it.
I went to middle school with - and am Facebook friends with - the guys who make up Rakontur Productions, which has made some successful documentaries, including The U (an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary about the Miami Hurricanes) and “Cocaine Cowboys”, about drug running in Miami in the 1980s.
Billy Corben (née Cohen) is the most prominent member of the group, although I was better friends with Alfred Spellman when we were in school. Nevertheless, I had classes with the three (David Cypkin, their editor, was the other one) and we were together in a TV production class when they first started making films. I’ve occasionally exchanged direct messages via social media.
Their most recent movie was about Jerry Falwell, Jr, and the cabana boy who was schtupping his wife.
I’ve known 13 Turing Award* winners, of which 12 seem to still be alive. All of them would know me. In terms of the most famous of those, Ron Rivest (the “R” in RSA encryption) might be considered the best known. (In fact, at one point, I was in the back seat of an extended car ride with both “R” and “A” right after their breakthrough but well before it was published.) Because of my work several other Turing Prize winners and such would also know me by name but would have had little to no direct contact with me.
Most people who got a Computer Science degree in the last 40 years would have seen my name in some textbooks, maybe heard in lectures. So many famous tech company founders would in theory know my name. But as a former CS prof, I’m well aware at how great students are at flushing knowledge away the second the test is over (and oftentimes even before that), so that reduces the odds quite a bit. Again another reason to discount people who would/could know my name but I’ve never interacted with.
There’s a moderately well known politician who sort of knows me. But you’d have to specify to him that I’m “so-and-so’s little brother.” My name on its own probably won’t ring any bells.
(I just checked the number of Google hits for my most well known work. It’s now over a half million. Cool or dorky, you decide.)
* The top prize in Computer Science.
There are a few possibilities - I’m going to try Atom Egoyan, the film and opera director - I’ve had the honour of working with him on his first ‘Cosí fan tutte’ as the understudy for Don Alfonso.
I’ve taken two group courses from Trey Gunn, who might recognize my name in conversation.
Or there’s Kent Monkman - I’ve posed for him on two occasions, and we’ve had great conversations
I’ll leave it to you to decide just how famous any of those people are…
Off topic – as a longtime band director (and percussionist), this makes me weep. What an awful thing to do or say. Your band director was a misogynistic jerk.
Maybe that was after hearing Meg White for the first time.
:flees: