This list of the University of Notre Dame alumni, includes graduates, non-graduate former students, and current students of Notre Dame and its graduate and professional schools. Since the university's founding in 1842, there have been 162 commencement exercises at the university. Although only two degrees were awarded to the first class in 1849, today the living alumni, known collectively as the "Fighting Irish", number near 120,000.(This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.)