42.3449° N, 71.0753° W
BOSTON
Most Famous People Born in Boston, United States
- Notable people
- 3,663
- Peak decade
- 1950s
- Median birth year
- 1926
- Most distinctive
- Novelist 3.5×
America's oldest civic intelligentsia. Boston's notables are unusually concentrated in the 1700s and 1800s by American standards, and the distinctive shelves still read like a Yankee almanac — novelists, lawyers, military officers, mathematicians, and diplomats, the trades of a city where Harvard, the State House, and the Old North Church share a few square miles. The modern half tilts more conventionally toward Red Sox baseball, actors, and a deep college-bred music scene.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Boston during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 348 notable births.
What Boston Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Actor is Boston's biggest profession — 9% of all notables (314).
Boston over-indexes on novelist — 3.5× the global rate.
Boston under-produces football — only 0.2× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Boston's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Politics & Law
- Sports
- Writing
- Film & TV
- Science
- Music
- Other
- Filtered to 1760s Clear ×
Samuel Dexter
1761 - 1816
Charles Bulfinch
1763 - 1844
Harrison Gray Otis (politician)
1765 - 1848
William Hill Brown
1765 - 1793
Joseph Ingraham
1762 - 1800
Mather Brown
1761 - 1831
Roger Hale Sheaffe
1763 - 1851
Thomas W. Thompson
1766 - 1821
Benjamin Hallowell Carew
1761 - 1834
Joseph Dennie
1768 - 1812
William Gordon (New Hampshire politician)
1763 - 1802
James Parker (Massachusetts)
1768 - 1837
William Dandridge Peck
1763 - 1822
William Coleman (editor)
1766 - 1829
Isaac Parker (Massachusetts judge)
1768 - 1830
Thaddeus Mason Harris
1768 - 1842
Thomas Handasyd Perkins
1764 - 1854
James Greenleaf
1765 - 1843
Benjamin Russell (journalist)
1761 - 1845
Thomas Leverett
1765 - 1833
Thomas Coffin (pre-confederation Canadian politician)
1762 - 1841