List of prostitutes and courtesans

Historical

Ancient world

• Rahab of Jericho
• Aspasia, Greek hetaera, companion of Pericles
• Phryne, Greek hetaera
• Thaïs, Greek hetaera who lived during the time of Alexander the Great
• Theodora, :Category:Byzantine empresses|empress of Byzantium
• Su Xiaoxiao, Chinese courtesan of the 5th century

  Early Modern era

• Imperia Cognati, the "first courtesan"
• Isabella de Luna, Italian courtesan of Renaissance-era Rome.
• Hwang Jini, the most famous Korean gisaeng
• Chica da Silva, famous eighteenth-century slave courtesan in Brazil, subject of the movie Xica
• Madame du Barry, mistress to Louis XV of France
• Veronica Franco, Venetian courtesan and poet
• Nell Gwyn, courtesan to Charles II of England

  19th century

• Laura Bell, the "Queen of London whoredom"
• Theresa Berkeley, dominatrix
• Jeanne Brécourt, born 1837, one of France's most notorious courtesans
• Annie Chapman, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Mary Jane Kelly, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Lizzie Lape, mid-Ohio madam, operator of multiple bordellos, 1880s-1900s
• Mary Ann Nichols, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Shady Sadie, courtesan who had an affair with Wyatt Earp
• Elizabeth Stride, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Martha Tabram, a possible victim of Jack the Ripper
• Libby Thompson, "Squirrel Tooth Alice," madam of a brothel in Sweetwater, Texas
• Julia Bulette, American prostitute in Virginia City, Nevada

  20th century

• Polly Adler, New York madam, 1920s to 1940s
• Air Force Amy, a legal prostitute in Nevada, pornographic actress, and adult model, who starred in the HBO television documentary series . MSNBC has called her "a living legend in the world of sex."
• Josie Arlington, madam in Storyville, New Orleans
• Caridad la Negra (María de la Caridad Norberta Pacheco Sánchez

  Fictional

In literature

• Bella Cohen, Florry, & Zoe, in Ulysses by James Joyce
• Belle, Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neill
• Belle Watling, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Candy, in ' by Luke Davies
• Candy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
• Chandramukhi, in Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
• Eccentrica Gallumbits, "The Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Elisabeth Rouset, in "Boule de Suif", a short story by Guy de Maupassant
• Fanny Hill, in Fanny Hill by John Cleland
• Fantine, in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

• Marguerite Gautier, from Alexandre Dumas, fils' work La Dame aux camélias, inspired by real life 19th-century courtesan Marie Duplessis,
• Jenny Smith, in Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The Threepenny Opera
• Juliette, in the Marquis de Sade's Juliette
• Kamala, in Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
• Lady Sally, in Callahan's Lady by Spider Robinson
• Lozana, Portrait of Lozana by Francisco Delicado
• Lulu, in Frank Wedekind's plays and Alban Berg's opera of the same name
• Mamie Stover, The Revolt of Mamie Stover by William Bradford Huie
• Manon Lescaut
• Mistress Overdone, manager of a bordello in Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
• Moll Flanders, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
• Molly Malone, Irish urban legend
• Mother Goose, in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
• Nana, Nana, by Émile Zola
• Nancy, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Odette, in Marcel Proust's Un amour de Swann
• Phedre no Delauny of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels
• Pie 'Oh' Pah, from Imajica by Clive Barker
• Romulus, central character in ' by Bruce Benderson
• Mrs. Rosie Palm, brothel owner and president of the Guild of "Seamstresses" in various Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
• Satine, in Moulin Rouge! by Baz Luhrmann, a story based on the Paris nightclub of the same name
• Séverine Serizy, in the 1928 novel Belle de Jour and the 1967 film based on it
• Sonya Marmeladova, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Suzie Wong, from The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Mason
• Talanta, La Talanta by Pietro Aretino
• Thúy Kiều, The Tale of Kieu by Nguyễn Du
• Tra La La, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
• Tristessa, Tristessa by Jack Kerouac
• Vasantsenaa, a Nagarvadhu, or wealthy courtesan, in Śudraka's Sanskrit play Mṛcchakatika
• Violetta, main character from the opera La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, is also inspired by Alexandre Dumas' La Dame aux camélias. "La Traviata" means "the reprobate".
• Yumi Komagata, in Rurouni Kenshin by Nobuhiro Watsuki
• Zaza, in Zaza by Pierre Berton and

  Film, television, and musical theater

• Belle the Sleeping Car, train in Starlight Express by Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Christine/Chelsea, central character in The Girlfriend Experience
• Inara Serra, Firefly by Joss Whedon
• Ai Nu in Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan by Chor Yuen
• Bree Daniels in Klute by Alan J. Pakula
• Cabiria in Nights of Cabiria by Federico Fellini
• Chandramukhi in Devdas by Sanjay Leela Bhansali ; from novella by Saratchandra Chatterjee
• Chiyo Sakamoto in Memoirs of a Geisha by Rob Marshall ; from novel by Arthur Golden
• Claire Reine / Garance in Children of Paradise by Marcel Carné
• Constance Miller in McCabe & Mrs. Miller by Robert Altman ; from novel by Edmund Naughton
• Doris in The Owl and the Pussycat by Herbert Ross ; from play by Bill Manhoff
• Eréndira in Eréndira by Ruy Guerra ; from novel by Gabriel García Márquez
• Fanny Hill in Fanny Hill by Russ Meyer ; from novel by John Cleland
• Fleur in Rouge by Stanley Kwan ; from novel by Lillian Lee
• Gigi in Gigi by Vincente Minnelli ; from novella by Colette
• Gloria Wandrous in BUtterfield 8 by Daniel Mann ; from novel by John O'Hara
• Hattie in Pretty Baby by Louis Malle
• Ilya in Never on Sunday by Jules Dassin
• Iris in Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese
• Irma La Douce in Irma la Douce by Billy Wilder ; from play by Alexandre Breffort
• Isabelle in Young & Beautiful by François Ozon
• Liz in Whore by Ken Russell ; from play by David Hines
• Lorena Wood in Lonesome Dove by Simon Wincer ; from novel by Larry McMurtry
• Lynn Bracken in L.A. Confidential by Curtis Hanson ; from novel by James Ellroy
• Marguerite Gautier in Camille by George Cukor ; from novel & play by Alexandre Dumas
• Maya in ' by Mira Nair
• Nana in Nana by Jean Renoir ; from novel by Émile Zola
• Ophelia in the comedy film Trading Places
• Otsuya in Irezumi by Yasuzō Masumura ; from novel by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
• Sahibjaan in Pakeezah by Kamal Amrohi
• Satine in Moulin Rouge! by Baz Luhrmann
• Seol-ji in The Accidental Gangster and the Mistaken Courtesan by Yeo Kyun-dong
• Séverine Serizy in Belle de Jour by Luis Buñuel ; from novel by Joseph Kessel
• Suzie Wong in The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Quine ; from novel by Richard Mason
• Tereza Batista in ' by Paulo Afonso Grisolli ; from novel by Jorge Amado
• Umrao Jaan in Umrao Jaan by J.P. Dutta ; from novel by Mirza Haadi Ruswa
• Veronica Franco in Dangerous Beauty by Marshall Herskovitz ; from biography by Margaret Rosenthal
• Violet in Pretty Baby by Louis Malle
• Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman by Garry Marshall
• Zoe in Killing Zoe by Roger Avary

Symbolic or allegorical prostitutes

• The Whore of Babylon
• Oholah and Oholibah
• Moll Hackabout, the prostitute in The Harlot's Progress by William Hogarth

  Myth and legend

• Agatha - English prostitute, mother of Mother Shipton
• Basileia - in Pandemos, this goddess was mainly a goddess for prostitutes or courtesans
• Bebhinn - the goddess of pleasure
• Belili - her worship required sacred prostitution
• Gomer, a prostitute whom God commanded Hosea to marry in the biblical Book of Hosea
• Mary Magdalene was supposed to have been a prostitute by those who identified her with the sinful woman in, an identification now generally abandoned
• Naamah - an angel of prostitution, one of the succubus mates of the demon Samael in Zoharistic Qabalah
• Rahab, Biblical prostitute who assisted the Hebrews in capturing Jericho
• Shamhat
• Xochiquetzal - the goddess of prostitutes, pregnant women, & dancing
• Alexandra Dé Broussehan - a woman turned spirit of prostitution, caused a war between the Callahan and Lawlor Clans, and often associated with Korrigan whose worship involved sacred prostitution