I know these people:

1)Panait Istrati (an excellent author)

2)Emil Cioran (an excellent philosopher)

3)Nicolae Iorga (an excellent historian)

4)Gheorghe Hagi (an excellent football player)

5)Gheorghe Popescu (an excellent football player)

6)Vlad Tepes (Dracula) 

Laurentiu Panaitopol, who was one of the greatest Romanian Math teachers.

Nadia Comăneci,

a Romanian gymnast, winner of three Olympic gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics, and the first gymnast ever to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She is also the winner of two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics. She is one of the best-known gymnasts in the world and, along with Olga Korbut, is credited with popularizing the sport around the world.[1][2][3] In 2000 Comăneci was named as one of the athletes of the century by the Laureus World Sports Academy.

Well, of course:

Adrian Mutu

Adrian Ilie

Lucescu

Lacatus

Rotariu

In addition to aforementioned. Among politicians, I still remember Ceausescu (though I am still not sure about the spelling.) The most renowned Romanian must be Dracula by the way.

I can think of two names only:

Vlad the Impaler - the funny thing is, a group of friends and I were going through Romania and since we were on the Transylvanian Route, we wanted to see Dracula´s castle. Unfortunately it was way before mobile internet so we had to ask locals. None of them knew who we were talking about. They said there were many Vlads and they didn´t know which one we meant. Dracula didn´t tell them anything and neither did my impersonation of a vampire. It was hard to believe they wouldn´t know him, unless they were just taking the mickey...

and

Nicolae Ceausescu - that´s because we´re from the same communist block of countries

Wikipedia already has it:

Famous Romanians

Edit:

Hmm, going through the list, it appears that I forgot to mention famous tennis player Nastase and chess player Nisipeanu. And of courese Gabriela Szabo from atletics section.

Also I see two people with their names ending -oglu (a Turkish suffix) in Math people.

I don´t personally know any famous Romanians - however other famous Romanians I have heard of:

Ilie Nastase (excellent former World No. 1 tennis player in 1970s)

Eugene Ionescu (playwrite Theatre of the Absurd)

Edward G Robinson (actor/filmstar) (wow! i learnt something today!!)

zeytinne, elenagabriela, her daughter, late Ceausescu and his wife..

What is next?  Famous people of Papua New Guinea? exotic  animals of Guinea Bissau?

Dimitrie Cantemir ...this for turks

It is better knowing new people than always discussing about Kurdish and Armenian issues over and over again.

I always wanted to read Mircea Eliade´s books about religions and mythology but always other books  intervened.

A chance to ridicule others for you. Isn´t that enough?

I don´t personally know any Romanians...and I don´t know any famous people of any nationality.  I am a big fan of Vlad the Impaler though - thank goodness DD remembered that one.

Thank you for this thread though, I feel enlightened and highly excited about the prospect of future threads of this ilk...

I decided to write an essay about famous Romanians i know. I am sure my English will suck. Because translating a text and writing an English essay two different things. And it is very difficult for me to express my thoughts in English because i think Turkish. So please forgive me for my mistakes.

1)While i was going to middle school i guess in one of our history lessons I first heard about Vlad Tepes-Dracula-Kazıklı Voyvoda(Voivode with Stake)He was so terrifying and interesting.He was a bloodthirsty man. I remember i thought that nailing of him ambassadores´ turban clothes to their heads is very unfair.  After i had watched the movie "Bram Stoker´s Dracula", i had a sympathy to him. Because in the movie while he was in the battlefield Ottomans was sending a message to his fiance telling that Vlad is dead (a lie for revenge) and his fiance was killing herself and because of this tragic event and his unanswered prayers he was denouncing God and turning into a monster.(Of course this is fiction but I found this very touching) Also Gary Oldman who was playing the Dracula was so charismatic in that movie this can also explain my sympathy to Dracula. By the way i am a huge fan of Gary Oldman since that movie. I also tried to read Bram Stoker´s novel but the only one i could find was English and reading a big novel in English always bores me. So i haven´t been able to finish it yet.I want to finish it.

2)Second Romanian i know was Hagi. I was going to middle school and i heard a very famous footballer was coming to the team (Galatasaray) i support. I was very excited. I think his first goal was against to Trabzonspor from a freekick. I have been a fan of him since that match. I also remember i made a bet with my friends.The bet was "as long as Hagi plays in Galatasaray we will always be champions". I was right but i have never got my 2,5 litres Coca Cola (my bet prize). Hagi was a Turk in my eyes. He was very angry and he was playing with his heart. He was like a Spartan warrior. I have always thought him as one of us. Popescu was also a great player. I always remember his last penalty and our joy when we won the UEFA Cup against Arsenal.

 3)I was a nihilist some time ago and i was thinking everything is meaningless and in vain. World was the most horrible place i could imagine for a human to live. I was thinking humans are strangers in this world and everything is absurd. Then i read a book of Cioran. He was telling the same things.He was so bitter and pessimist. His style shocked me.I felt his anger and disappointment in my veins.

4)I was in a depressed mood(not a long time ago) while i was reading Panait Istrati´s novel Mihail. But Istrati´s warm writing style and his optimistic thoughts about life and friendship effected me a lot. I decided to look at the world from an optimistic perspective. I also decided to read his other novel Mediterranian. It was also a good read. Despite the fact Panait Istrati tried to kill himself at a time in his life, he was so optimistic and full of hope in his novels. In his these two novels you will witness the importance of true friendship.

 5)I have always thought about Turkish history. I have always thought we tried to conquer whole Europe in the past and Europeans will never forgive us for this. I have thought all of the European historians agree that we are barbaric people. But then i read about Nicolae Iorga. He was one of the three foreign historians who wrote whole Ottoman History. And i also read that he was a very neutral historian. I decided to buy his big Ottoman History. I started to read his work from Fatih Sultan Mehmet part and i found him as they tell. There was not a single bad word about Turks. And he was also appreciating Fatih Sultan Mehmet for his good behavior towards Christians. I was very surprised. And i appreciated him a lot.

So i want to thank all these wonderful Romanian people for changing my life.

Living in a neighbour country, I know lots of famous Romanians but some of them are my true favorites:

- poets Mihai Eminescu and Nichita Stănescu,

- Gheorghe Zamfir, excellent pan flute (one of Romanian national instruments) musician,

- Ştefan cel Mare, voivode of Moldavia, a romantic medievial hero,

- daughter of King Ferdinand I, Princess Maria of Romania, who became the Queen of Yugoslavia, loved and respected by Yugoslavian people as one of the greatest humanitarian patrons.

There are many more things I love about Romania, but I´ll leave it for some new thread

 a-a...I think I have missed the point

Zamfir! Of course. How could I forget him?

 it is very kind...thank you

 You were punk´d by "gagalayıcı" 

Welcome back Hagi