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 1850s Clear ×
Louis Sullivan
1856 - 1924
Percival Lowell
1855 - 1916
Henry Cabot Lodge
1850 - 1924
Albert Henry Munsell
1858 - 1918
William Henry Pickering
1858 - 1938
Thomas Dewing
1851 - 1938
P. J. Kennedy
1858 - 1929
A. Lawrence Lowell
1856 - 1943
Fannie Farmer
1857 - 1915
Charles Sprague Pearce
1851 - 1914
Samuel Wendell Williston
1851 - 1918
Jane Toppan
1854 - 1938
George von Lengerke Meyer
1858 - 1918
Charles B. Cory
1857 - 1921
Walter Gay
1856 - 1937
Thomas W. Lawson (businessman)
1857 - 1925
Morton Prince
1854 - 1929
Jesse Pomeroy
1859 - 1932
Laura E. Richards
1850 - 1943
William Edward Story
1850 - 1930
J. Franklin Jameson
1859 - 1937
Nathaniel Carl Goodwin
1857 - 1919
Samuel D. Warren
1852 - 1910
Ralph Wormeley Curtis
1854 - 1922
Clarence W. Barron
1855 - 1928
Mary Shaw (actress)
1854 - 1929
Isabel Florence Hapgood
1851 - 1928
William Sturgis Bigelow
1850 - 1926
George Adams Leland
1850 - 1924
Sarah J. Eddy
1851 - 1945
Thomas J. Geary
1854 - 1929
Arthur Frothingham
1859 - 1923
William Roscoe Thayer
1859 - 1923
James G. Maguire
1853 - 1920
Karl Gerhardt
1853 - 1940
Barrett Wendell
1855 - 1921
Marie Jansen
1857 - 1914
Henry Sherman Boutell
1856 - 1926
Ada Adini
1855 - 1924
Henry E. Dixey
1859 - 1943
Edward Robinson (curator)
1858 - 1931
Charles Evans (librarian)
1850 - 1935
Edward Everett Hayden
1858 - 1932
Robert O. Harris
1854 - 1926
Charles F. Sprague
1857 - 1902
John Calvin Stevens
1855 - 1940
Martin Lomasney
1859 - 1933
Francis Cabot Lowell (judge)
1855 - 1911
George Howard Monks
1853 - 1933
John T. Bowen
1857 - 1940
Maud Howe Elliott
1854 - 1948
Robert Grant (novelist)
1852 - 1940
William Lawrence (bishop)
1850 - 1941
Adeline Pond Adams
1859 - 1948
Miles Crowley
1859 - 1921
Anna Adams Gordon
1853 - 1931
Arthur Corbin Gould
1850 - 1903
Edward Warren
1856 - 1930
Alex McKinnon (baseball)
1856 - 1887
Frederick Gilbert Bourne
1851 - 1919
Charles Daniel Tenney
1857 - 1930
Peter E. Costello
1854 - 1935
C. Allen Thorndike Rice
1851 - 1889
Lelia J. Robinson
1850 - 1891
John Morrill
1855 - 1932
Tom O'Rourke (boxing manager)
1856 - 1936
Nathan Matthews Jr.
1854 - 1927
Woolson Morse
1858 - 1897
Clement Walker Andrews
1858 - 1930
Mary Morton Kehew
1859 - 1918
Jimmy Macullar
1855 - 1924
Mary Catherine Crowley
1856 - 1920
George F. Hammond
1855 - 1938
Mary Ella Waller
1855 - 1938
Gid Gardner
1859 - 1914
Bill McGunnigle
1855 - 1899
Alexander Bradley
1851 - 1925
Herbert Leeds
1855 - 1930
Webster Wells
1851 - 1916
Charles A. Cheever
1852 - 1900
Chub Sullivan
1856 - 1881
Philip Rounsevile Alger
1859 - 1912
Martha Codman Karolik
1858 - 1948
Herbert Parker (Massachusetts politician)
1856 - 1939
James Horton (Medal of Honor)
Born 1850
Charles Pomeroy Parker
1852 - 1916
William Fiske Whitney
1850 - 1921
Daisy Davis
1858 - 1902
John R. Murphy
1856 - 1932
Robert Codman
1859 - 1915
William Sweeney (Medal of Honor)
Born 1856
Charles Franklin Sparrell
1852 - 1934
Dan Cronin (baseball)
1857 - 1885
Michael Connolly (Medal of Honor)
Born 1855
Austin E. Ford
1857 - 1896
William Sadler (Medal of Honor)
Born 1854
Billy Porter (criminal)
Born 1850
Dupee Shaw
1859 - 1938
Steve Dignan
1859 - 1881
Bill Tierney (baseball)
1858 - 1898
William Herbert Rollins
1852 - 1929
Owen A. Galvin
1852 - 1897
Xenos Young Clark
1855 - 1889
Freeman Gill
1851 - 1905
Herbert Ayling
Born 1853
Charles E. Harwood
1851 - 1924
Ed Callahan (baseball)
1857 - 1947
Jim Ward (baseball)
1855 - 1886
Clarence Dow
1854 - 1893
Henry O. Fairbanks
Born 1852
Jerry Sweeney
1857 - 1891
Benjamin Welles
1857 - 1935
John Rayner Edmands
1850 - 1910
George Fair
1856 - 1939
George H. Lyman
1850 - 1945
Nathaniel Thayer III
1851 - 1911
John Elliot Cowdin
1858 - 1941
John Bergh
1857 - 1883
Alvin F. Sortwell
1854 - 1910
Walter Irving Badger
1859 - 1926
Denny Sullivan (third baseman)
1858 - 1925
Lewis J. Ingalls
1857 - 1913
Sarah Gooll Putnam
1851 - 1912
James Sumner (baseball)
1851 - 1881
Susan Hinckley Bradley
1851 - 1929