| 142021 | December 17 | Birth | 1903 – Erskine Caldwell, American author (d. 1987) |
| 142022 | December 17 | Birth | 1903 – Ray Noble, English bandleader, composer, and actor (d. 1978) |
| 142023 | December 17 | Birth | 1904 – Paul Cadmus, American painter and illustrator (d. 1999) |
| 142024 | December 17 | Birth | 1905 – Simo Häyhä, Finnish soldier and sniper (d. 2002) |
| 142025 | December 17 | Birth | 1905 – Mohammad Hidayatullah, Indian lawyer, judge, and politician, 6th Vice President of India (d. 1992) |
| 142026 | December 17 | Birth | 1905 – Erico Verissimo, Brazilian author and translator (d. 1975) |
| 142027 | December 17 | Birth | 1906 – Fernando Lopes-Graça, Portuguese composer and conductor (d. 1994) |
| 142028 | December 17 | Birth | 1906 – Russell C. Newhouse, American pilot and engineer (d. 1998) |
| 142029 | December 17 | Birth | 1908 – Willard Libby, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980) |
| 142030 | December 17 | Birth | 1910 – Eknath Easwaran, Indian-American educator and author (d. 1999) |
| 142031 | December 17 | Birth | 1910 – Sy Oliver, American singer-songwriter and trumpet player (d. 1988) |
| 142032 | December 17 | Birth | 1912 – Edward Short, Baron Glenamara, English captain and politician, Lord President of the Council (d. 2012) |
| 142033 | December 17 | Birth | 1913 – Burt Baskin, American businessman, co-founded Baskin-Robbins (d. 1967) |
| 142034 | December 17 | Birth | 1914 – Fernando Alonso, Cuban ballet dancer, co-founded the Cuban National Ballet (d. 2013) |
| 142035 | December 17 | Birth | 1914 – Raymond Fernandez, American murderer (d. 1951) |
| 142036 | December 17 | Birth | 1915 – André Claveau, French singer (d. 2003) |
| 142037 | December 17 | Birth | 1916 – Penelope Fitzgerald, English author and poet (d. 2000) |
| 142038 | December 17 | Birth | 1917 – Kenneth Dike, Nigerian historian, author, and academic (d. 1983) |
| 142039 | December 17 | Birth | 1920 – Kenneth E. Iverson, Canadian computer scientist, developed the APL programming language (d. 2004) |
| 142040 | December 17 | Birth | 1921 – Lore Berger, German-Swiss author and translator (d. 1943) |
| 142041 | December 17 | Birth | 1922 – Alan Voorhees, American engineer and academic (d. 2005) |
| 142042 | December 17 | Birth | 1923 – Jaroslav Pelikan, American historian and scholar (d. 2006) |
| 142043 | December 17 | Birth | 1926 – Ray Jablonski, American baseball player (d. 1985) |
| 142044 | December 17 | Birth | 1926 – John Hans Krebs, American lawyer and politician (d. 2014) |
| 142045 | December 17 | Birth | 1926 – Stephen Lewis, English actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, and playwright (d. 2015) |
| 142046 | December 17 | Birth | 1926 – Patrice Wymore, American-Jamaican actress and singer (d. 2014) |
| 142047 | December 17 | Birth | 1927 – Ivar Ivask, Estonian poet and scholar (d. 1992) |
| 142048 | December 17 | Birth | 1927 – Richard Long, American actor and director (d. 1974) |
| 142049 | December 17 | Birth | 1927 – Edward Meneeley, American painter and sculptor (d. 2012) |
| 142050 | December 17 | Birth | 1928 – Marilyn Beck, American journalist and actress (d. 2014) |