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
Sort By

Showing 92 of 3,663 notable people

0030 PAINTER

Winslow Homer

1836 - 1910

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0050 HISTORIAN

Henry Adams

1838 - 1918

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0072 MILITAR

Robert Gould Shaw

1837 - 1863

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0191 ACADEMIC

Charles William Eliot

1834 - 1926

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0211 OFFICER

Charles Francis Adams Jr.

1835 - 1915

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0257 PRIEST

Phillips Brooks

1835 - 1893

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0265 LIBRARIAN

Charles Ammi Cutter

1837 - 1903

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0326 CHEMIST

James Crafts

1839 - 1917

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0469 PALAEONTOLOGIST

Samuel Hubbard Scudder

1837 - 1911

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0528 BIOLOGIST

William Stimpson

1832 - 1872

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0618 PHILOSOPHER

Francis Ellingwood Abbot

1836 - 1903

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0633 LAWYER

John Quincy Adams II

1833 - 1894

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0658 HISTORIAN

Justin Winsor

1831 - 1897

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0685 ARCHITECT

Henry Van Brunt

1832 - 1903

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0718 PHOTOGRAPHER

William H. Mumler

1832 - 1884

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0784 WRITER

Annie Adams Fields

1834 - 1915

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0801 AUTHOR

Francesca Alexander

1837 - 1917

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0808 CHEMIST

George Frederick Barker

1835 - 1910

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0884 PAINTER

Susan Hale

1833 - 1910

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1004 AUTHOR

Austin Abbott

1831 - 1896

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1049 OPERA

Charles R. Adams

1834 - 1900

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1108 NOVELIST

Benjamin Vaughan Abbott

1830 - 1890

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1178 POLITICIAN

William W. Warren

1834 - 1880

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1204 BANK

T. Jefferson Coolidge

1831 - 1920

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1264 PHYSICIAN

Horatio Storer

1830 - 1922

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1310 POLITICIAN

Samuel Miller Quincy

1832 - 1887

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1427 POLITICIAN

John L. Blake

1831 - 1899

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1442 SINGER

Fanny Ronalds

1839 - 1916

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1484 PAINTER

Enoch Wood Perry Jr.

1831 - 1915

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1559 RAILROAD

Charles Russell Lowell

1835 - 1864

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1607 INVENTOR

Edward A. Calahan

1838 - 1912

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1660 PAINTER

William Parsons Winchester Dana

1833 - 1927

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1687 ZOOLOGIST

William G. Binney

1833 - 1909

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1725 LIEUTENANT

Charles Fessenden Morse

1839 - 1926

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1730 PHILOSOPHER

Anna Brackett

1836 - 1911

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1762 ACTOR

George Aiken (playwright)

1830 - 1876

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1767 POLITICIAN

Charles Hale

1831 - 1882

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1794 PRIEST

Charles Chapman Grafton

1830 - 1912

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1802 POLITICIAN

Frank Welch (American politician)

1835 - 1878

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1879 PRIEST

William Croswell Doane

1832 - 1913

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1896 WRITER

Horace Scudder

1838 - 1902

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1933 SUFFRAGETTE

Mary Greenleaf Clement Leavitt

1830 - 1912

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1999 JOURNALIST

Samuel Adams Drake

1833 - 1905

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2020 LIBRARIAN

Lucy Toulmin Smith

1838 - 1911

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2154 OFFICER

Thomas G. Stevenson

1836 - 1864

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2198 ADMINISTRATOR

Edward W. Hooper

1839 - 1901

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2199 ACTOR

William E. Sheridan

1839 - 1887

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2241 JOURNALIST

Edward Howard House

1836 - 1901

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2250 PAINTER

Stephen Salisbury Tuckerman

1830 - 1904

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2264 PHYSICIAN

Nancy M. Hill

1833 - 1919

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2288 OFFICER

Thomas Oliver Selfridge Jr.

1836 - 1924

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2306 OFFICER

Caspar Crowninshield

1837 - 1897

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2318 SOCIAL REFORMER

Robert Treat Paine (philanthropist)

1835 - 1910

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2359 ACTOR

William J. Le Moyne

1831 - 1905

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2410 ACTOR

Frank M. Mayo

1839 - 1896

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2427 ENSEIGNANT

Charles Baldwin

1834 - 1896

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2440 SISTER

Elizabeth Sewall Alcott

1835 - 1858

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2496 OFFICER

Thomas Sherwin

1839 - 1914

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2560 BUSINESS

Henry Mason (piano manufacturer)

1831 - 1890

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2711 ACTOR

Daniel Harkins

1836 - 1902

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2728 GEOLOGIST

James Duncan Hague

1836 - 1908

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2843 NAVY

James Seanor

Born 1833

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3036 COLONEL

Algernon Sidney Badger

1839 - 1905

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3054 BUSINESS

Thomas Forbes Cushing

1838 - 1902

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3070 POLITICIAN

George P. Bemis

1838 - 1916

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3085 POLITICIAN

Samuel Welles de Lavalette

1834 - 1892

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3117 OFFICER

Charles Jackson Paine

1833 - 1916

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3121 POLITICIAN

Peter Cushman Jones

1837 - 1922

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3139 MILITAR

William Osborn (Medal of Honor)

1837 - 1887

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3153 POLITICIAN

Isaac Bradford

1834 - 1898

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3187 NAVY

Oliver O'Brien

1839 - 1894

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3210 OPHTHALMOLOGIST

Oliver Fairfield Wadsworth

1838 - 1911

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3249 SCULPTOR

Florence Freeman

1836 - 1876

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3263 POLITICIAN

Alonzo Cooper Rand

1831 - 1885

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3299 BUSINESS

James Walker Tufts

1835 - 1902

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3301 NAVY

John H. James (sailor)

1835 - 1914

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3373 BUSINESS

David Nevins Jr.

1839 - 1898

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3379 OFFICER

Greely S. Curtis

1830 - 1897

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3402 OFFICER

Charles Sawyer Russell

1831 - 1866

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3406 PREACHER

George Whitaker (Oregon educator)

1836 - 1917

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3438 ENGINEER

Nathaniel S. Keith

1838 - 1925

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3494 NAVY

George Willis (Medal of Honor)

1839 - 1884

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3533 LAWYER

Horace H. Coolidge

1832 - 1912

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3552 MILITAR

William Moore (Medal of Honor)

1837 - 1918

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3593 SOLDIER

William Parker (Medal of Honor)

Born 1832

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3596 LAWYER

Joseph Lewis Stackpole

1838 - 1904

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3605 GALLANTRY

William S. Bond (Medal of Honor)

1839 - 1892

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3621 PHILOSOPHER

Ida M. Eliot

1836 - 1923

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3624 ASTRONOMER

Phillip Sidney Coolidge

1830 - 1863

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3638 MILITAR

John Smith (Medal of Honor, born 1831)

Born 1831

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3657 CHEMIST

Charles Hallett Wing

1836 - 1915

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3661 POET

Emily Gillmore Alden

Born 1834

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