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 1880s Clear ×
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
1888 - 1969
Frances Perkins
1882 - 1965
Samuel Eliot Morison
1887 - 1976
Joseph Grew
1880 - 1965
George Minot
1885 - 1950
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1882 - 1966
Pauline Frederick
1883 - 1938
Roger Adams
1889 - 1971
George B. Seitz
1888 - 1944
Harold Hitz Burton
1888 - 1964
Thurston Hall
1882 - 1958
Jeanie MacPherson
1887 - 1946
Ralph Ince
1887 - 1937
Frank Craven
1881 - 1945
Angelina Weld Grimké
1880 - 1958
Jane Cowl
1883 - 1950
James L. Peters
1889 - 1952
Dick Elliott
1886 - 1961
Sargent Claude Johnson
1888 - 1967
Eleonora Sears
1881 - 1968
John Treadwell Nichols
1883 - 1958
Joe Gould (bohemian)
1889 - 1957
Isaac Goldberg
1887 - 1938
Henry Beston
1888 - 1968
William Stowell
1885 - 1919
Griffith C. Evans
1887 - 1973
George Bonhag
1882 - 1960
Daniel Frank (athlete)
1882 - 1965
Ruth Sawyer
1880 - 1970
Robert W. Upton
1884 - 1972
Nathaniel Niles (figure skater)
1886 - 1932
John R. Tunis
1889 - 1975
Nat Ayer
1887 - 1952
Willard Rockwell
1888 - 1978
Frank Keaney
1886 - 1967
George D. Murray
1889 - 1956
George W. Meyer
1884 - 1959
Henry B. Richardson
1889 - 1963
Richard Whitney (financier)
1888 - 1974
Estelle Hemsley
1887 - 1968
Archibald Thompson Davison
1883 - 1961
Stanton Griffis
1887 - 1974
William Francis Murray
1881 - 1918
Louis H. Bauer
1888 - 1964
Margaret Fitzhugh Browne
1884 - 1972
Joseph Nathaniel French
1888 - 1975
Edith Barry
1884 - 1960
Tom Gibson
1888 - 1950
Gretchen Woodman Rogers
1881 - 1967
Mariska Aldrich
1881 - 1965
Christine Frederick
1883 - 1970
Burnell Poole
1884 - 1933
William "Honey" Mellody
1884 - 1919
Dexter Perkins
1889 - 1984
Grace Hutchins
1885 - 1969
Eloise Gerry
1885 - 1970
Ella Lola
1883 - 1960
John Gorman (director)
1884 - 1936
Albert Fox
1881 - 1964
George Hoyt
1883 - 1962
Shano Collins
1885 - 1955
David Niles
1888 - 1952
Margaret Darst Corbett
1889 - 1962
Samuel Davis Wilson
1881 - 1939
Samuel Burtis Baker
1882 - 1967
Joe Reilly
1880 - 1951
William Ward Watkin
1886 - 1952
Al Taylor (actor)
1887 - 1951
Irving Wright
1882 - 1953
Leon Fraser
1889 - 1945
George V. Brown
1880 - 1937
Pearl Chase
1888 - 1979
Carolina White
1886 - 1961
Sada Cowan
1882 - 1943
James Alexander Brennan
1885 - 1956
David L. Webster
1888 - 1976
James R. Quirk
1884 - 1932
Bob Fisher (American football coach)
1887 - 1942
Herbert Gidney
1881 - 1963
H. Roy Waite
1884 - 1978
Charles Logue
1889 - 1938
Myron Fuller
1889 - 1949
Allen Melancthon Sumner
1882 - 1918
Harry Sherman
1884 - 1952
Bunny Madden
1882 - 1954
Elizabeth Amsden
1881 - 1966
Dexter W. Draper
1881 - 1961
Matty Baldwin
1885 - 1918
Harry Pattee
1882 - 1971
Jim McCormick (American football)
1884 - 1959
Hector Dion
1880 - 1942
Sanford Bates
1884 - 1982
Herman Young
1886 - 1966
Mae Gaston
1885 - 1965
Bettina Freeman
Born 1889
Harold McDevitt
Born 1885
Paul Howard (baseball)
1884 - 1968
William Joy (American football)
1888 - 1969
William J. A. Bailey
1884 - 1949
Bill Cooney
1883 - 1928
Tom Raftery (baseball)
1881 - 1954
Arthur E. Reimer
1882 - 1969
William Rand (athlete)
1886 - 1981
Evelyn Parnell
1888 - 1939
Walter Lonergan
1885 - 1958
Joe Casey (baseball)
1887 - 1966
William Codman Sturgis
1886 - 1942
Erik Ekroth
1883 - 1954
Jim Wallace (baseball)
1881 - 1953
Jogger Elcock
1888 - 1964
James Jackson (Massachusetts politician)
Born 1881
Francis Ford (judge)
1882 - 1975
Jim Moroney (baseball)
1883 - 1929
Bill McCarthy (baseball)
1886 - 1928
Allie Strobel
1884 - 1955
Gus Salve
1885 - 1971
Antoine Joseph Jobin
1889 - 1972
Edgar White Burrill
1883 - 1958
Thomas C. O'Brien
1887 - 1951
Gertrude Quinlan
1880 - 1968
Bremer Whidden Pond
1884 - 1959
Amy Ricard
1882 - 1937
Ed Brawley
1888 - 1945
William Davis Ticknor Sr.
1881 - 1938
John Olin
1886 - 1920
Edward F. McLaughlin
1883 - 1953
Clark Tobin
1887 - 1952
Patrick Grant (American football)
1886 - 1927
John I. Fitzgerald
1882 - 1966
Harry Rogers Pratt
1884 - 1956
Frederic Timothy Murphy
1884 - 1924
Dan Barry (umpire)
1886 - 1947
Louis Mettling
1884 - 1907
S. Howard Voshell
1888 - 1937
Nat Johnson
1883 - 1921
Alfred John Lill Jr.
1880 - 1956