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.

Through the Decades

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 novelist3.5× the global rate.

Boston under-produces football — only 0.2× the global rate.

  1. Actor314
  2. Politician312
  3. Writer149
  4. Lawyer135
  5. Baseball110
  6. Painter106
  7. Music102
  8. Football87
  1. Novelist503.5×
  2. Baseball1102.6×
  3. Officer632.6×
  4. Mathematician452.5×
  5. Lawyer1352.1×
  6. Music1021.9×
  7. Diplomat371.7×
  8. Actor3141.6×
  1. Football870.2×

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.

16501700175018001850190019502000
  • Politics & Law
  • Sports
  • Writing
  • Film & TV
  • Science
  • Music
  • Other
All3,663
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Showing 30 of 3,663 notable people

0011 PAINTER

Samuel Morse

1791 - 1872

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0169 MUSIC

Josiah Warren

1798 - 1874

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0282 OFFICER

Edwin Vose Sumner

1797 - 1863

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0372 HISTORIAN

George Ticknor

1791 - 1871

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0614 CHEMIST

John White Webster

1793 - 1850

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0648 BOTANIST

Francis Boott

1792 - 1863

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0703 DIPLOMAT

Alexander Hill Everett

1792 - 1847

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0814 POLITICIAN

John G. Palfrey

1796 - 1881

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0880 POLITICIAN

Samuel Atkins Eliot (politician)

1798 - 1862

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0897 POLITICIAN

William B. Calhoun

1796 - 1865

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1016 PAINTER

John Neagle

1796 - 1865

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1018 MILITAR

John L. Gardner (brigadier general)

1793 - 1869

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1185 POLITICIAN

Benjamin Thompson (politician)

1798 - 1852

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1309 AUTHOR

Daniel Pierce Thompson

1795 - 1868

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1336 GEOGRAPHER

Sidney Edwards Morse

1794 - 1871

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1346 POLITICIAN

Theodore Lyman (militiaman)

1792 - 1849

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1416 MINISTER

Samuel Joseph May

1797 - 1871

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1421 POET

Caroline Howard Gilman

1794 - 1888

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1453 BUSINESS

George Parkman

1790 - 1849

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1881 POET

Charles Sprague (poet)

1791 - 1875

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1991 OFFICER

John Marston (sailor)

1795 - 1885

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2101 ABOLITIONIST

James George Barbadoes

1796 - 1841

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2124 SUFFRAGETTE

Samuel Edmund Sewall

1799 - 1888

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2189 WRITER

Theophilus Parsons (professor)

1797 - 1882

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2514 ABOLITIONIST

Gamaliel Bradford (abolitionist)

1795 - 1839

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2606 TEACHER

Sarah Bradford Ripley

1793 - 1867

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2629 PHILANTHROPIST

Eliza Henderson Boardman Otis

1796 - 1873

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2902 POLITICIAN

John Coffin Jones Jr.

1796 - 1861

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3192 LAWYER

George Eustis Sr.

1796 - 1858

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3540 POLITICIAN

Abraham Edwards

1796 - 1870

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