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 1870s Clear ×
Frank Knox
1874 - 1944
Walter Russell
1871 - 1963
James Michael Curley
1874 - 1958
William Farnum
1876 - 1953
Theodore Lyman
1874 - 1954
Charles-Edward Amory Winslow
1877 - 1957
Thomas Burke (athlete)
1875 - 1929
Alvan T. Fuller
1878 - 1958
Franklyn Farnum
1878 - 1961
Beals Wright
1879 - 1961
Harriet Boyd Hawes
1871 - 1945
Charles Sellon
1870 - 1937
Arthur Blake (distance runner)
1872 - 1944
Blanche Ring
1871 - 1961
Henry Bryant Bigelow
1879 - 1967
John Charles Phillips
1876 - 1936
John Paine (sport shooter)
1870 - 1951
Wesley Coe
1879 - 1926
William Dallimore
1871 - 1959
Bill Holland (sprinter)
1874 - 1930
John Homans
1877 - 1954
Arthur Cheney Train
1875 - 1945
Elmer Ernest Southard
1876 - 1920
Andrew James Peters
1872 - 1938
Maud Wood Park
1871 - 1955
Lucia Fairchild Fuller
1872 - 1924
Joseph W. Smiley
1870 - 1945
William Braithwaite
1878 - 1962
George Cabot Lodge
1873 - 1909
Jed Prouty
1879 - 1956
Henry Davis Sleeper
1878 - 1934
Robert Morss Lovett
1870 - 1956
Henry James (biographer)
1879 - 1947
Pauline Whittier
1876 - 1946
William Starling Burgess
1878 - 1947
George H. Tinkham
1870 - 1956
R. B. Merriman
1876 - 1945
Louis Kronberg
1872 - 1965
Peter Francis Tague
1871 - 1941
Joseph Walsh (Massachusetts)
1875 - 1946
Henry Percival Dodge
1870 - 1936
Paul West
1871 - 1918
Gertrude Fiske
1879 - 1961
Joseph F. O'Connell
1872 - 1942
Arthur Woods
1870 - 1942
Guy Lowell
1870 - 1927
Robert Gould Shaw II
1872 - 1930
Fay Davis
1872 - 1945
Mary Cabot Wheelwright
1878 - 1958
Harriet Hallowell
1873 - 1943
Percy Jewett Burrell
1877 - 1964
Amy Maria Sacker
1872 - 1965
William Sumner Appleton
1874 - 1947
Bertram Shapleigh
1871 - 1940
Ethel Isadore Brown
1871 - 1944
Frederick Parker Gay
1874 - 1939
Henry S. Dennison
1877 - 1952
Henry Edward Sears
1870 - 1920
Joe Bean
1874 - 1961
Ida Conquest
1876 - 1937
Carl Strauss
1873 - 1957
Isabel Weld Perkins
1877 - 1949
Warren Cook
1878 - 1939
Paul W. Litchfield
1875 - 1959
Molly Childers
1875 - 1964
George Winslow Plummer
1876 - 1944
William Robert Daly
Born 1871
Gaston Bell
1877 - 1963
William Jurian Kaula
1871 - 1953
Leonora Jackson McKim
1879 - 1969
John A. Brewin
1876 - 1938
Frank Pease
1879 - 1959
Frederick G. Katzmann
1875 - 1953
Robert Emmons
1872 - 1928
Elizabeth F. Fisher
1873 - 1941
Anita Florence Hemmings
1872 - 1943
Louise Gunning
1879 - 1960
Daniel A. Whelton
1872 - 1953
Franklin Story Conant
1870 - 1897
Roxana Vivian
1871 - 1961
James Sturgis Pray
1871 - 1929
Henry W. Prescott
1874 - 1943
Kempster Blanchard Miller
1870 - 1933
Frank A. Brown
1876 - 1962
Bert Waters
1871 - 1930
Alonzo Edwin Branch
1874 - 1925
Charles R. Apted
1873 - 1941
Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft
1873 - 1971
Joseph J. Sullivan
1870 - 1949
Charles Hayden (banker)
1870 - 1937
John Warren (1874-1928)
1874 - 1928
Mike Mahoney (first baseman)
1873 - 1940
Charles Hiller Innes
1870 - 1939
Tom Smith (pitcher)
1871 - 1929
James Halligan (American football)
1879 - 1965
Benjamin F. Haines
1876 - 1942
W. J. Randall
1874 - 1925
Edward B. Cole
1879 - 1918
Edward H. Gibson
1872 - 1942
Thomas Addis Emmet (bishop)
1873 - 1950
Proctor L. Dougherty
1873 - 1966
William E. Carney
Born 1878
Hattie Williams
1870 - 1942
Henry Lampe
1872 - 1936
Charles W. Eldridge
Born 1877
George H. Nee
1876 - 1952
Louise Brigham
1875 - 1956
Frederic Tracy Hubbard
1875 - 1962
William Elliott (actor, born 1879)
1879 - 1932
Margaret Foley (suffragist)
1875 - 1957
Sydney Booth
1873 - 1937
John Butler (baseball)
1879 - 1950
Joe Sullivan (shortstop)
1870 - 1897
William H. Dolben
1878 - 1948
Arthur Chamberlin Wise
1876 - 1952
George A. Scigliano
1874 - 1906
Hiller Crowell Wellman
1871 - 1956
Ednorah Nahar
Born 1873
Clifton Daggett Gray
1874 - 1948
William F. O'Hare
1870 - 1926
Thomas H. Maguire
1877 - 1915
David John Scannell
1875 - 1923
William C. Mackie
1870 - 1931
Eugene Hultman
1875 - 1945
Anthony Gianelly
1876 - 2009
Elwood G. Babbit
Born 1871
William Chauncey Rice
1878 - 1941