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 1800s Clear ×
Edgar Allan Poe
1809 - 1849
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 - 1882
Albert Pike
1809 - 1891
Charles Francis Adams Sr.
1807 - 1886
Samuel Gridley Howe
1801 - 1876
Robert Charles Winthrop
1809 - 1894
Horatio Greenough
1805 - 1852
Caleb Blood Smith
1808 - 1864
James Barnes (general)
1801 - 1869
Charles Henry Davis
1807 - 1877
William Henry Leonard Poe
1807 - 1831
Thomas Hubbard Sumner
1807 - 1876
Samuel Stillman Osgood
1808 - 1885
George Goldthwaite
1809 - 1879
Martha Coffin Wright
1806 - 1875
Samuel Francis Smith
1808 - 1895
Thomas D. Eliot
1808 - 1870
Samuel H. Walley
1805 - 1877
J. Wiley Edmands
1809 - 1877
Harriot Kezia Hunt
1805 - 1875
Charles Codman
1800 - 1842
Amos Binney
1803 - 1847
Edmund Quincy (1808–1877)
1808 - 1877
Ephraim Wales Bull
1806 - 1895
William Bayle Bernard
1807 - 1875
Abby May
1800 - 1877
Thomas O. Larkin
1802 - 1858
Benjamin F. Nutting
1803 - 1887
Josiah Quincy Jr.
1802 - 1882
William Henry Furness
1802 - 1896
Thomas Oliver Selfridge
1804 - 1902
Russell Sturgis (1805–1887)
1805 - 1887
Susan Paul
1809 - 1841
Joseph Francis
1801 - 1893
Edward G. Loring
1802 - 1890
Ellis Gray Loring
1803 - 1858
Thomas Gamaliel Bradford
1802 - 1887
George W. Richardson
1808 - 1886
J. B. S. Jackson
1806 - 1879
Mary Dominis
1803 - 1889
Samuel M. Pook
1804 - 1878
William P. Winchester
1801 - 1850