Almost thought that said Joseph Stalin

I don't know. It depends on what you call notoriety. Do indie devs get the same level of notoriety as AAA? No, not at all. But they do achieve some sort of status. Take for instance Phil Fish, Edmond McMillion or Markus Persson. Most gamers know who they are. Same with Johnathon Blow. The biggest indie titles, especially when developed by one or two people, usually bring the creator's names with them because it's pretty remarkable when one or two people make something that goes on to be that successful.

But again, if you're wondering why they don't achieve AAA status, well... it's because they're not AAA games. Less people play them, so less people care.

Well Minecraft is the best selling game of all time so of course gamers are going to know who notch is.

Is it? I didn't know that. Doesn't surprise me though. It's sort of the quintessential ever-green title to end all ever-green titles. I can totally picture three or four generations of gamers playing that game.

Well you know what is even more incredible is that when these legendary names open their indie companies they are left on a forgotten realm

Eric Barone, he made Stardew Valley.
But maybe most people know him as Concerned Ape.

I don't know half the people in the OP.

We do?

I know Ron Gilbert, Ken & Roberta Williams, Tim Schafer, Charles Cecil, Al Lowe, Jane Jensen, Dave Gilbert, Scott Murphy, Mark Crowe, Dave Grossman, Chris Jones, Jan Mülller-Michaelis... everyone has his own bubble.

Of course I also know some of the bigger names like Sid Meier, Hideo Kojima and Chris Roberts who can put their names on the game boxes or in the title.

I feel like the titles of your threads could use some work.

Plenty of indie devs get notoriety (both good and bad). Hell, I'd say it's easier for them, since they don't have a big studio or publisher stealing the spotlight, and one-man games are pretty much exclusive from indies.

I think the majority of us on these forums know the studios behind the games much more than we know the actual creators.

Neil Druckmann, Cory Barlog, Hideo Kojima, Ed Boon, John Carmack, are really the only ones that I know off the top of my head, without having to wrack my brain, although I'm not including figures like Mark Cerny or Satoru Iwata. A similar exercise using studios would yield significantly more results.