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 1840s Clear ×
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
1841 - 1935
Lilla Cabot Perry
1848 - 1933
Edward Charles Pickering
1846 - 1919
Abbott Handerson Thayer
1849 - 1921
William Healey Dall
1845 - 1927
Edwin Lord Weeks
1849 - 1903
Frank Wigglesworth Clarke
1847 - 1931
Charles Sprague Sargent
1841 - 1927
Francis Amasa Walker
1840 - 1897
Julian Hawthorne
1846 - 1934
Seth Carlo Chandler
1846 - 1913
Marian Hooper Adams
1843 - 1885
William Gilson Farlow
1844 - 1919
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
1844 - 1911
Albert Augustus Pope
1843 - 1909
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin
1842 - 1924
Horace Mann Jr.
1844 - 1868
Henry Pickering Bowditch
1840 - 1911
James Jackson Putnam
1846 - 1918
Roger Wolcott (Massachusetts)
1847 - 1900
Charles B. Atwood
1849 - 1895
James Wells Champney
1843 - 1903
Edward Lewis Sturtevant
1842 - 1898
Julian Sturgis
1848 - 1904
Elizabeth Boott
1846 - 1888
William Tufts Brigham
1841 - 1926
De Scott Evans
1847 - 1898
Edward Burnett
1849 - 1925
Selwyn Z. Bowman
1840 - 1928
Charles Pickering Bowditch
1842 - 1921
Clemens Herschel
1842 - 1930
Samuel Franklin Emmons
1841 - 1911
Arnold Hague
1840 - 1917
George Herbert Palmer
1842 - 1933
Henry Marion Howe
1848 - 1922
George Albert Frost
1843 - 1907
James Barr Ames
1846 - 1910
James Read Chadwick
1844 - 1905
John Torrey Morse
1840 - 1937
James A. D. Richards
1845 - 1911
James T. Bates
1844 - 1914
Frank Morey
1840 - 1890
Henry Oliver Walker
1843 - 1929
Francis Greenwood Peabody
1847 - 1936
Alice Gordon Gulick
1847 - 1903
Charles Loring Jackson
1845 - 1935
Charles Edward Coffin
1841 - 1912
Frederic Woodman Root
1846 - 1916
William G. Preston
1842 - 1910
Theodore R. Davis
1840 - 1894
Frederic Crowninshield
1845 - 1918
Josie Mansfield
1847 - 1931
Fanny Garrison Villard
1844 - 1928
Thomas Dwight
1843 - 1911
Gaetano Lanza
1848 - 1928
Charles H. Taylor (publisher)
1846 - 1921
Theophilus P. Chandler Jr.
1845 - 1928
Thomas Russell Sullivan
1849 - 1916
Francis J. Higginson
1843 - 1931
Ellen Thayer Fisher
1847 - 1911
Burt Green Wilder
1841 - 1925
John Collins Warren Jr.
1842 - 1927
Matthew Harkins
1845 - 1921
Hattie Tyng Griswold
1842 - 1909
William J. Morton
1846 - 1920
Joseph H. De Castro
1844 - 1892
Charles Carroll Soule
1842 - 1913
Juliet Corson
1841 - 1897
Alexander Pope Jr.
1849 - 1924
Frank Hill Smith
1842 - 1904
Augusta Joyce Crocheron
1844 - 1915
William H. Hodgkins
1840 - 1905
William Herbert Bixby
1849 - 1928
Nathaniel M. Allen
1840 - 1900
Patrick H. McCarren
1849 - 1909
Charles G. Bush
1842 - 1909
George Edmands Merrill
1846 - 1908
Daniel Gilfether
1849 - 1919
John Donald Daly
1841 - 1923
Florence Hall (Pulitzer Prize winner)
1845 - 1922
James William Pattison
1844 - 1915
Charles A. Coolidge
1844 - 1926
George G. Crocker
1843 - 1913
Horace Bumstead
1841 - 1919
Robert Shaw Oliver
1847 - 1935
John Trowbridge
1845 - 1923
Frederick C. Anderson
1842 - 1882
Mary Myers
1849 - 1932
Walter Deane
1848 - 1930
Alice Wellington Rollins
1847 - 1897
Menzies Dickson
1840 - 1891
Adolphus W. Green
1844 - 1917
William Troy
1848 - 1907
Edgar Allen Poe Newcomb
1846 - 1923
Frederick S. Neilon
1846 - 1916
John McFarland (Medal of Honor)
1840 - 1881
Thomas H. Dunham
1840 - 1925
Thomas Harcourt (Medal of Honor)
Born 1841
Edmund C. Converse
1849 - 1921
Gardner S. Hardee
1842 - 1926
Frank H. Newcomb
1846 - 1934
Harriet Nevins
1841 - 1929
James Brady (Medal of Honor)
1842 - 1904
Thomas Fletcher Oakes
1843 - 1919
West Funk
1841 - 1897
Neil Burgess
1846 - 1910
James Morris Whiton Hall
1842 - 1926
Percival C. Pope
1841 - 1922
Harriet Abbott Lincoln Coolidge
1849 - 1902
John H. Brown (Medal of Honor)
1842 - 1898
Joseph Cushing Edmands
1842 - 1878
Arthur R. Curtis
1842 - 1925
Henry E. Turner (Massachusetts politician)
1842 - 1911
Aaron Nichols Skinner
1845 - 1918
Emma Aline Osgood
1849 - 1911
Levi B. Gaylord
1840 - 1900
Adelaide Avery Claflin
1846 - 1931
Edward Hyde Rice
1847 - 1895
Robert Means Lawrence
1847 - 1935
Abbie Howard Hunt Stuart
1840 - 1902