Famous People Named Charles
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Famous People Named Charles trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Charles is one of history's busiest names. It has belonged to kings and emperors, to the naturalist who rewrote biology, to generals, inventors and con men, and, shortened to Chuck or Charlie, to rock and roll pioneers, sitcom stars, drummers and Hall of Fame athletes. This quiz gathers them in one place. Some questions hand you a clue and a set of people who share the name, so you have to tell one from another. Others start with a famous Charles, such as Darwin, de Gaulle, Babbage or Chuck Norris, and ask what he did, who he worked with or what he left behind. A few fictional characters and brand names with a Chuck or Charlie in them round things out. It suits pub quiz hosts looking for a themed round, anyone throwing a party for the Charles, Chuck or Charlie in their life, and general knowledge fans who like their history, science, music, film and sport mixed together. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US president was born on 12 February 1809, the very same day as naturalist Charles Darwin?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room Kentucky log cabin on the day Darwin was born at his family's comfortable home in Shrewsbury, England.
Q 02Which English mathematician, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under a pen name?
Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll is his real name in disguise: he turned Charles Lutwidge into the Latin Carolus Ludovicus, swapped the order and translated it back into English.
Q 03Chuck E. Cheese pizza arcades were started in 1977 by Nolan Bushnell, founder of which video game company?
Atari
Atari made its name with Pong, and Bushnell wanted arcade machines out of pool halls and in front of families, so he built a restaurant around them.
Q 04Basketball salesman Chuck Taylor's signature sits on the ankle patch of which brand's canvas high-top sneakers?
Converse
Converse took Taylor on as a travelling salesman, adopted his ideas for the design and added his name to the All Star, the first celebrity-endorsed athletic shoe.
Q 05In the film Cast Away, stranded FedEx employee Chuck Noland gives which name to the volleyball he befriends?
Wilson
Wilson gets a face when Chuck cuts his hand trying to start a fire and leaves a bloody print on the ball. It is his only companion for four years on the island.
Q 06Which silent film star, creator of the Tramp, received a 12-minute standing ovation at the 1972 Academy Awards?
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin was back in the United States for the first time in 20 years, after his re-entry permit was revoked over questions about his politics.
Q 07Which rock and roll pioneer's Johnny B. Goode is the only rock song on the Voyager spacecraft's Golden Record?
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry was just as famous for the duck walk, a crouching strut he first did as a child to fetch a ball from under a table.
Q 08Which aviator flew the Spirit of St. Louis alone from New York to Paris in 1927, taking over 33 hours?
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh was chasing the $25,000 Orteig Prize, and he found France by dead reckoning because he thought radio gear too heavy and unreliable to carry.
Q 09Pharmacist Charles Alderton created which soft drink at a Waco, Texas, soda fountain in 1885, a year before Coca-Cola?
Dr Pepper
Dr Pepper was first served at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store, where early customers ordered it by a nickname borrowed from the town rather than by its name.
Q 10Which game show did Chuck Woolery host from its 1975 debut until Pat Sajak replaced him in 1981?
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune was only the start for Woolery, who went on to host Love Connection for more than a decade, along with Scrabble, Greed and Lingo.
Q 11Which Victorian novelist left school at 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory while his father was in debtors' prison?
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot polish, working ten-hour days to pay for his board and help his family.
Q 12King Charles III was crowned alongside Queen Camilla on 6 May 2023 in which historic church?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey has staged coronations since William the Conqueror's in 1066, and Charles became the 40th monarch to be crowned there.
Q 13After King Charles I was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in 1649, which general ruled England as Lord Protector?
Oliver Cromwell
Q 21Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine inspired notes by which mathematician, often called the first computer programmer?
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace set out how the machine could calculate Bernoulli numbers, a method often described as the first published computer program.
Q 22Which self-taught chemist patented vulcanized rubber in 1844 yet was sent to debtor's prison again and again?
Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear never owned the tire maker that carries his name: Frank Seiberling founded it in 1898, almost four decades after the inventor's death.
Q 23Which swindler promised investors a 50% profit in 45 days in 1920 by trading international postal reply coupons?
Charles Ponzi
Oliver Cromwell had been a leading advocate of the king's execution, and he took the title in December 1653 and kept it for the last five years of his life.
Q 14After the 1651 Battle of Worcester, the future King Charles II hid from Roundhead soldiers in which kind of tree?
An oak
An oak in the woods around Boscobel House kept him out of sight, which is why The Royal Oak became one of the most common pub names in the country.
Q 15Which Frankish king was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in 800?
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was named after his grandfather, the war leader Charles Martel, and his French name runs together Charles-le-magne, meaning Charles the Great.
Q 16Which teenage peasant girl helped the future Charles VII of France reach a 1429 coronation at Reims Cathedral?
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc came from the village of Domrémy and demanded an escort to Charles from a garrison commander, saying visions of angels and saints had given her a mission.
Q 17Charles de Gaulle rallied the Free French from exile in 1940, then returned to power in 1958 to found which regime?
The Fifth Republic
The Fifth Republic was built around a strong presidency under a constitution approved by referendum, and de Gaulle held the office until he resigned in 1969.
Q 18British general Charles Cornwallis surrendered his army to George Washington's forces in 1781 at which town?
Yorktown
Yorktown found Cornwallis claiming to be ill on the day of the ceremony, apparently to avoid facing Washington, so a deputy handed over his sword for him.
Q 19Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped to Skye after his 1746 defeat at Culloden disguised as the maid of which Scottish heroine?
Flora MacDonald
Flora MacDonald took him across by boat as an Irish maid called Betty Burke, a cover story that also explained away the maid's unladylike manners.
Q 20Charles Guiteau, an office seeker who felt he was owed a consulship, shot which US president in Washington in 1881?
James A. Garfield
James A. Garfield owed him nothing: Guiteau played only a peripheral part in the election campaign, yet believed he had won it and deserved a post in Vienna or Paris.
Charles Ponzi did not invent the trick of paying old investors with new investors' money, but it became so tied to him that it has carried his surname ever since.
Q 24Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg developed a 1935 scale at the California Institute of Technology to measure what?
Earthquakes
Earthquakes were Richter's life's work: he was inspired by a 1928 paper from Japan's Kiyoo Wadati, and he kept studying seismograph data daily even after retiring.
Q 25Charles Best co-discovered which hormone with Frederick Banting, then sold the patent to a university for one dollar?
Insulin
Insulin won Banting and John Macleod the 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine, but the committee passed over Best and his colleague Collip.
Q 26Charles's law, named for French scientist Jacques Charles, says a gas's volume rises in proportion to which property?
Temperature
Temperature, measured in kelvins with the pressure held constant, is the partner. Charles never published the work, so Gay-Lussac credited him when confirming it in 1802.
Q 27Journalist Charles Dow, inventor of a famous stock market average, co-founded which financial newspaper?
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal came out of Dow Jones & Company, the firm Dow set up with Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser.
Q 28Charlie Munger was vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway from 1978 until his death in 2023 beside which famous investor?
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett called Munger his closest partner and right-hand man, and credited him as the architect of the company's business philosophy.
Q 29English astronomer Charles Mason spent 1763 to 1767 surveying a famous colonial boundary line with which partner?
Jeremiah Dixon
Jeremiah Dixon was a surveyor and amateur astronomer from County Durham, and the Mason–Dixon line the pair marked out still carries both their names.
Q 30Which actor, born Carlos Estévez, had his Two and a Half Men contract terminated in March 2011?
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen had been the highest-paid actor on television, earning $1.8 million an episode for playing the sitcom's Charlie Harper.