For a place that most out-of-staters can’t figure out how to pronounce, Alachua County has its fair share of celebrity ties.

Without getting into those who stopped in Gainesville to study at the University of Florida, a fair list of household names can call Alachua County home, either through family ties, a birth place, or the place they chose to spend their later years in peace.

Listed below are the top 10, in alphabetical order:

John R. Alison

Born in Micanopy on Nov. 21, 1912, Maj. Gen. John Richardson “Johnny” Alison was Co-Commander, 1st Air Commando Group, U.S. Army Air Corps, according to the U.S. Air Force’s biography of him. He is known as the father of Air Force Special Operations and is credited with the first night victory in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater, according to The Gathering of Eagles Foundation.

Alison graduated from Gainesville High School and earned a degree in industrial engineering from UF, enlisting as a cadet and completing flight training in Texas in 1936 and earning his Air Corps Reserve commission as a second lieutenant in 1937.

As a command pilot with combat mission in the P-40, C-47, P-51, and B-25 aircraft flown in China and Burma, Alison was an “ace” pilot with seven confirmed aerial victories.

Alison joined the Air Force Reserve in 1947 and served as an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics 1947–1949, and President of the Air Force Association 1954–55.

In 2010, Alison was inducted into the U.S. Special Operations Command Hall of Honor.

Alison died June 6, 2011, in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

To memorialize his service, Hurlburt Field, a U.S. Air Force installation in Okaloosa County, named a building housing the 492nd Special Operations Wing and U.S. Air Force Special Operations School in Alison’s honor.

James “Robert” Cade

Most famous for the invention of Gatorade, Cade was a scientist, physician and inventor who designed and developed multiple sports-transforming inventions, including the first shock dissipating football helmet, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

Born in San Antonio, Texas on Sept. 26, 1927, Cade moved to Gainesville in 1961 after graduating from Southwestern Medical School and fulfilling an internship, residency and post-doctoral fellowship at Cornell University Hospital, where he discovered an interest in nephrology, a specialty in kidney diseases and conditions.

In Gainesville, Cade joined UF’s faculty as an assistant professor of internal medicine and chief of the renal division. In 1971 he became a full professor of medicine and physiology, and eventually transitioned to professor emeritus, a post he held until his death.

During his time at UF, Cade led a team to develop a replenishing fluid that came to be known as Gatorade, for the Gators football team. The drink came into play on the varsity level in a 1965 game against the Louisiana State University Tigers, in which the Gators surged ahead late in the game to prevail.

When UF initially declined to market the drink, Cade sold the formula, which led to a legal battle when Gatorade’s popularity grew and the university demanded payment. Cade and UF eventually settled to share royalty payments from Gatorade.

Cade was also a musician with a vast collection of violins, and he wrote poetry and an unpublished autobiography titled “Freut Euch Des Lebens” (Take Joy in Life). He helped establish the Gainesville Community Foundation and the Cade Museum Foundation, used to construct the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention.

Cade died in Gainesville on Nov. 27, 2007 of kidney failure, survived by his wife and six children. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

Bo Diddley (musician)

Known as “The Originator” for his role in transitioning from blues to rock and roll, and rock, Bo Diddley spent the last portion of his life living in Hawthorne and Archer, according to the New Mexico Music Commission.

Born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi on Dec. 30, 1928, the boy was adopted and raised by his mother’s cousin, Gussie McDaniel, and simplified his name to Ellas McDaniel when the family moved to Chicago.

McDaniel studied the trombone and violin in his teenage years but drifted toward the rhythms of the music of a local Pentecostal church more than that of the orchestra. He started playing on street corners with friends into the early ‘50s, before landing a few regular spots and recording demos, including one called “Bo Diddley,” the same as the stage name he assumed.

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Bo Diddley’s success grew as he toured internationally and wrote music for himself and others.

Bo Diddley’s driving rhythms and hard-edged guitar influenced such names as Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, according to the Bo Diddley website.

In the late 1970s, Diddley moved to Hawthorne to live in a custom-made log cabin that he helped build, then split the rest of his life alternating between Abuquerque, New Mexico and Florida, spending the last 13 years of his life in Archer.

Among many other accolades, Bo Diddley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 1987, and he was recognized as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards, alongside Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

After suffering a stroke and heart attack in 2007, Bo Diddley died on June 2, 2008, of heart failure at his home in Archer.

Joe Haldeman

Born in Oklahoma on June 9, 1943, Haldeman grew up in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Alaska, according to his website.

Haldeman earned a B.S. in astronomy from the University of Maryland in 1967, before being drafted in the same year to fight in the central highlands of Vietnam as a combat engineer with the 4th Division (1/22nd Airmobile Bn.). He came home with a Purple Heart and other standard medals.

He conducted graduate studies in math/computer science in 1969-70 before dropping out to write. In 1975, he earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from the Iowa Writers Workshop.

Starting in 1972 with “War Year,” set in the Vietnam War, Haldeman began frequently and consistently publishing books, novellas and stories, up until his most recent non-fiction “Conversations From the Edge: The Galaxy’s Edge Interviews” in 2019.

Haldeman’s novel “The Forever War,” and its sequel, “Forever Peace,” both won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, according to Penguin Random House.

Haldeman currently lives in Gainesville with his wife, Gay Haldeman.

Tom Petty

The famous performer and co-writer of The Swamp’s “I Won’t Back Down,” Tom Petty led his band, The Heartbreakers, to fame in the late 1970s and ‘80s with a “rootsy sound and great original songs,” according to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Born Thomas Earl Petty in Gainesville, Florida, on October 20, 1950, Petty met Elvis Presley in 1961 on a film set in Ocala and took inspiration to seek out rock ‘n’ roll. His first band had a southern country rock tone, but when Petty joined up with the Heartbreakers, the band started scoring hits, beginning with “Breakdown” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which Petty wrote with guitarist Mike Campbell.

The band’s fame took off from there, and in 2002, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Petty died in 2017 after a Heartbreakers’ 40^th anniversary tour that he had told Rolling Stone would be “the last big one.”

Joaquin Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix, now famous for his leading roles in films such as “Joker,” “Gladiator” and “Her,” got his start taking cues from his creative siblings as the family moved frequently throughout Central and South America before settling in the Los Angeles area when he was about 6 years old.

Born with the name Joaquin Rafael Bottom in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 28, 1974, Phoenix changed his surname with the rest of his family later on to celebrate new beginnings and rising from the ashes, according to IMDB. Early on, he changed his first name as well, to “Leaf,” in an effort to match his older siblings River and Rain.

Living in LA, Phoenix’s parents found an agent to represent all five of the family’s children, and the boy jumped into television commercials with his siblings. Phoenix’s had his first real acting gig in a guest appearance on his brother River’s sitcom, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1982).

Phoenix worked his way through television roles, and even when the family moved to Gainesville, he found his way into films including “SpaceCamp” (1986) and “Parenthood” (1989) before taking three years off from acting.

After River, who had been on a trajectory to fame, died of a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23, Phoenix began reluctantly reading scripts again at the insistence of friends and colleagues.

Though the family left Florida after River’s death, his ashes were scattered at the family ranch in Micanopy that he had bought, according to BBC.

Phoenix returned to the screen in 1995 in “To Die For” (1995) and continued to build momentum from there, growing more popular with critics as he starred in more movies.

He lives now in Hollywood Hills.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Author of the acclaimed 1939 book, “The Yearling,” Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings spent her childhood in the northeast, but moved to Cross Creek when she was 32 and was quickly drawn in by the environment and people, according to the Florida Department of State.

Rawlings was born Marjorie Kinnan on Aug. 8, 1896, in Washington, D.C., where her father was a patent attorney, and she grew up visiting her parents’ Maryland farm, and her grandparents’ Michigan farm, sowing in her a love for nature and agriculture.

In high school, Kinnan began substantially contributing to local newspapers, and gained success through her short stories.

The family moved to Wisconsin after Kinnan’s father died, and in 1918 she graduated the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an English degree.

Kinnan met a fellow writer, Charles Rawlings, while working on the university’s literary magazine, and in 1919 they were married.

After some time in Kentucky, then in New York, the couple moved to a cracker-style house in Cross Creek, near Hawthorne.

Though Kinnan Rawlings fell in love with the area, Charles discovered a distaste for it and the couple divorced in 1933, the same year Kinnan Rawlings published her first novel based in the area, “South Moon Under.”

Kinnan Rawlings published eight books in two decades living at Cross Creek, from “The Yearling” to “Cross Creek Cookery.”

After remarrying a man named Norton Baskin in 1941, Kinnan Rawlings began spending most of her time on the east coast of Florida. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1953.

Maya Rudolph

Though she seems to have left Alachua County behind, the Saturday Night Live (SNL) star comedian and actor was born in Gainesville.

On July 27, 1972 in Gainesville, Rudolph was born, but only a year later her family chose to move to California to encourage her mother Minnie’s singing career, according to IMDB.

Rudolph majored in photography at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and formed a band with fellow students before deciding to pursue a career in comedy.

In 2000, Rudolph joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and became a popular performer for her impressions and characters. Ahead of the 2024 general election, Rudolph returned to SNL to portray Vice President Kamala Harris in SNL skits.

Craig Silverstein

Though perhaps not a household name, Craig Silverstein is the former director of technology for Google, where he was the first employee hired by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

The Silverstein family moved to Gainesville when Craig Silverstein was 6, according to a 2006 Gainesville Sun article. He graduated from Eastside High School, where he had attended the international baccalaureate program, in 1990.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Harvard University, according to the Exploratorium, a public learning laboratory in California, whose board of trustees Silverstein joined.

Silverstein went on to earn a master’s degree in computer science at Stanford, where Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were his classmates. He began a PhD there, too, but dropped out to help start Google.

Though he no longer lives in Gainesville, according to the Sun article, Silverstein maintained a connection to his hometown, through at least one charitable donation, and returning every year for Christmas vacation.

Silverstein left Google in 2012 to join online education startup Khan Academy, which had 35 employees at the time, according to the Sun article. Khan Academy now has grown into a 150-person organization with resources translated into at least 36 languages, according to its website.

Sister Hazel

A fan-centric band with themed cruises and other fan/artist interactions, Sister Hazel’s brand of rock mixes jangle pop, folk rock, and classic and southern rock.

The band formed in Gainesville in 1994, named after Sister Hazel Williams, a nun who ran a local homeless shelter, according to The Vogue.

Sister Hazel’s self-titled debut album came out in 1994 through an independent record label. Soon after that album’s release, singer/guitarist Ryan Newell and drummer Mark Trojanowski joined the band, though Newell had played on the album before officially joining the group.

When the band released its second album, “Somewhere More Familiar,” in 1997, it sold about 30,000 copies in the initial pressing—enough to draw the attention of Universal Records, which signed the band and re-released the album later that year.

“All For You,” a single from that second album, reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and is still the band’s most successful single.

The band’s latest release is this year’s “Sand, Sea & Crash Debris” album.