Namvar Singh (Hindi: नामवर सिंह) (28 July 1926 – 19 February 2019) was an Indian literary critic, linguist, academician and theoretician. He received his doctorate degree from Banaras Hindu University where he also taught for some time. He served as a professor of Hindi literature in several other universities. He was the founder and first chairman of Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre of Indian Languages and continued to remain as a professor emeritus after his retirement in 1992.