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 1810s Clear ×
Charles Sumner
1811 - 1874
William M. Evarts
1818 - 1901
Wendell Phillips
1811 - 1884
Charlotte Cushman
1816 - 1876
Frances Sargent Osgood
1811 - 1850
Oliver Winchester
1810 - 1880
George Peter Alexander Healy
1813 - 1894
Thomas Ball (artist)
1819 - 1911
Henry Jacob Bigelow
1818 - 1890
Edward Tuckerman
1817 - 1886
John Sullivan Dwight
1813 - 1893
William Ellery Channing (poet)
1818 - 1901
Henry Theodore Tuckerman
1813 - 1871
Henry Gardner
1819 - 1892
Thomas Gold Appleton
1812 - 1884
William Cooper Nell
1816 - 1874
Benjamin Thomas (congressman)
1813 - 1878
Thomas Mayo Brewer
1814 - 1880
Joseph Lovering
1813 - 1892
John Bernard Fitzpatrick
1812 - 1866
Richard Storrs Willis
1819 - 1900
Jane Stuart
1812 - 1888
Henry Whitney Bellows
1814 - 1882
Rob Morris (Freemason)
1818 - 1888
Edward Loomis Davenport
1816 - 1877
Francis Bowen
1811 - 1890
George Loring Brown
1814 - 1889
Robert Bernard Hall
1812 - 1868
Henry Winthrop Sargent
1810 - 1882
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff
1810 - 1874
Ellen Sturgis Hooper
1812 - 1848
Thomas William Parsons
1819 - 1892
Samuel Parkman Tuckerman
1819 - 1890
John Witt Randall
1813 - 1892
Thomas Thayer
1812 - 1886
Richard Saltonstall Greenough
1819 - 1904
Francis Boott (composer)
1813 - 1904
Joseph Warren Revere (general)
1812 - 1880
Thomas Willis Pratt
1812 - 1875
Alfred Charles Hobbs
1812 - 1891
Frederic W. Lincoln Jr. (politician)
1817 - 1898
Mary Traill Spence Lowell Putnam
1810 - 1898
John C. Cremony
1815 - 1879
Thomas Ridgeway Gould
1818 - 1881
James Jackson Jarves
1818 - 1888
Edward D. Townsend
1817 - 1893
Joseph Wightman
1812 - 1885
Robert Traill Spence Lowell
1816 - 1891
Oliver Ditson
1811 - 1888
John Weiss
1818 - 1879
James D. Morgan
1810 - 1896
Henry Simmons Frieze
1817 - 1889
Edward Clarke Cabot
1818 - 1901
Henry L. Eustis
1819 - 1885
George Edward Ellis
1814 - 1894
Richard Wainwright (American Civil War naval officer)
1817 - 1862
Frederick O. Prince
1818 - 1899
Edward E. Salisbury
1814 - 1901
Samuel P. Spear
1815 - 1875
Samuel Lancaster Gerry
1813 - 1891
Julius Walker Adams
1812 - 1899
John Gibbs Gilbert
1810 - 1889
Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston
1812 - 1899
Horatio Hastings Weld
1811 - 1888
Horace Brooks
1814 - 1894
Jonathan Harrington
1811 - 1881
Jonathan Mason Warren
1811 - 1867
Charles W. Adams (Confederate general)
1817 - 1878
Joshua Hall Bates
1817 - 1908
Henry A. Homes
1812 - 1887
Caroline Sturgis Tappan
1818 - 1888
James Dana (mayor)
1811 - 1890
James Adams (Massachusetts politician)
1810 - 1880
Mary Whitwell Hale
1810 - 1862
Richard Frothingham Jr.
1812 - 1880
Samuel Cabot III
1815 - 1885
Frederic Vinton (bibliographer)
1817 - 1890
George Harrington
1815 - 1892
William Davis Merry Howard
1818 - 1856
John P. Coburn
1811 - 1873
Henry F. Williams
1813 - 1903
Timothy T. Sawyer
1817 - 1905
John Souther
1816 - 1911
Elisha Cutler Jr.
1816 - 1849