James Sumner may refer to:
James Sumner (baseball) (1851–1881), American baseball umpire James Sumner (soldier) (1840–1912), United States Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor James B. Sumner (1887–1955), American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry James Edward (Red) Sumner Jr. (born 1948), stellar occultation astronomer after whom asteroid 36983 Sumner is named