List of prostitutes and courtesans

Ancient world

Aspasia, Greek hetaera, companion of Pericles

Phryne, Greek hetaera

Rahab, biblical prostitute who assisted the Hebrews in capturing Jericho (Joshua 2:1-7)

Su Xiaoxiao, Chinese courtesan of the 5th century

Thaïs, Greek hetaera who lived during the time of Alexander the Great

Theodora, Empress of Byzantium

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 Luke 7:36–50, an identification now generally abandoned.

Modern era

Lizzie Lape, mid-Ohio madam, owner of the White Pigeon saloon and house in Warren G. Harding's Marion, Ohio, and operator of multiple bordellos, 1880s-1900s

Polly Adler, New York madam, 1920s - 1940s

Josie Arlington, madam in Storyville, New Orleans

Laura Bell, the "Queen of London whoredom"

Cassandra, the "Golden Heels Madamme" <La Tacón Dorado> Tijuana, B.C. México 1940's - 1980's many American tourist included some politicians used to cross the border between California and Tijuana to have a special love night with Cassandra, specially during the 1950s

Theresa Berkeley, 19th-century dominatrix

Karan, lover of King Francis as well as King Henry VIII, the French king referred to her as "The English Mare"

Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman

Annie Chapman, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper

Madame du Barry, mistress to Louis XV of France

Veronica Franco, Venetian courtesan and poet

Nell Gwyn, courtesan to Charles II of England

Xaviera Hollander, author of the memoir The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.

Mary Jane Kelly, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper

Carol Leigh, a.k.a. Scarlot Harlot, coined the term "sex worker"

Mata Hari (born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle), Dutch spy

Mary Ann Nichols, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper

Barbara Payton, American actress turned prostitute

Shady Sadie (Josephine Marcus) Courtesan who had an affair with Wyatt Earp

Annie Sprinkle, American sex worker, porn star, and sex educator and writer

Chica da Silva, famous eighteenth-century slave courtesan in Brazil, subject of the movie Xica.

Elizabeth Stride, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper

Martha Tabram, a possible victim of Jack the Ripper

Valérie Tasso, French author

Libby Thompson, "Squirrel Tooth Alice," madam of a brothel in Sweetwater, Texas

Clara Ward, Princesse de Caraman-Chimay, daughter of a Michigan lumberman who spent most of her life in Europe

Lulu White, madam in Storyville, New Orleans

Brooke Magnanti, blogger and scientist who wrote as Belle de Jour and was the inspiration for Billie Piper's character in Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Suzy Favor-Hamilton, 3 time Olympian for Track and Field, and the subject of intense publicity when her activities as an escort became public.

Air Force Amy,a legal prostitute in Nevada, pornographic actress, and adult model, who starred in of the HBO television documentary series Cathouse: The Series. MSNBC has called her "a living legend in the world of sex."

Sheila Vogel-Coupe, at 85+ the oldest prostitute in the United Kingdom and, possibly, the world.

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 Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction by Luke Davies

Candy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Chandramukhi, in Devdas

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 by Guy de Maupassant

Fanny Hill, in Fanny Hill, by John Cleland

Fantine, in Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

Lady Sally, a.k.a. Callahan's Lady

Marguerite Gautier, from Alexandre Dumas, fils' work La Dame aux camélias, inspired by real life Marie Duplessis, 19th century courtesan

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".

Jenny Smith, in Kurt Weill's Mahagonny and Threepenny Opera

Juliette, in the Marquis de Sade's Juliette

Kamala, in Siddhartha

Lozana, Portrait of Lozana by Francisco Delicado

Lulu, in Frank Wedekind's plays and Alban Berg's opera of the same name

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 The Romanian: Story of an Obsession 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

Mamie Stover, The Revolt of Mamie Stover by William Bradford Huie

Sonya Marmeladova, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Suzie Wong, from The World of Suzie Wong

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.

Yumi Komagata, in Rurouni Kenshin, by Nobuhiro Watsuki

Zaza, in Zaza by Pierre Berton and Charles Simon

In film, television, and musical theater

Belle de jour, Belle de jour by Luis Buñuel

Irma la Douce, central character in film and musical of the same name

Inara Serra, Firefly by Joss Whedon

Mrs. Miller, in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, by Robert Altman

Vivian Ward, central character in Pretty Woman

Belle the Sleeping Car, train in "Starlight Express" by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Donna, in Tricks, by DeAara Lewis

Iris, central character in the 1976 film "Taxi Driver"

Maggie Thorpe, Dorothy Bennett and Blanche Simmons in Tenko are all to some degree prostitutes.

Symbolic or allegorical prostitutes

The Whore of Babylon

Oholah and Oholibah

Moll Hackabout, the prostitute in The Harlot's Progress by William Hogarth

Prostitutes in myth and legend

Agatha - English prostitute, mother of Mother Shipton

Basileia (Ancient Greece) - in Pandemos, this goddess was mainly a goddess for prostitutes or courtesans

Bebhinn (Celts of the British Isles) - the goddess of pleasure

Belili (Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, Philistines, & Canaanites) - her worship required sacred prostitution

The daughters in the Saint Nicholas legend (Asia Minor) - they were sold to a brothel keeper by their father

Naamah (Hebrews) - an angel of prostitution, one of the succubus mates of the demon Samael in Zoharistic Qabalah

Shamhat (Sumer/Babylon)

Xochiquetzal (Aztecs) - the goddess of prostitutes, pregnant women, & dancing

Alexandra Dé Broussehan (Irish Celts) - a woman turned spirit of prostitution, caused a war between the Callahan and Lawlor Clans. Often associated with Korrigan whose worship involved sacred prostitution