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 1890s Clear ×
Rose Kennedy
1890 - 1995
Jack Haley
1898 - 1979
Harry Dexter White
1892 - 1948
Arthur Fiedler
1894 - 1979
Ian Keith
1899 - 1960
Richard Cushing
1895 - 1970
Jimmy McHugh
1894 - 1969
Dorothy Davenport
1895 - 1977
Harry Crosby
1898 - 1929
Adolf A. Berle
1895 - 1971
Kenneth Harlan
1895 - 1967
John W. McCormack
1891 - 1980
Alexander Hall
1894 - 1968
Walter Charles Langer
1899 - 1981
Henry Gilman
1893 - 1986
Raymond Griffith
1895 - 1957
Myles Connolly
1897 - 1964
Moe Dalitz
1899 - 1989
Henry Morton Robinson
1898 - 1961
Leo Reisman
1897 - 1961
George Marion Jr.
1899 - 1968
Frederick Lewis Allen
1890 - 1954
Richard B. Wigglesworth
1891 - 1960
Donald De Lue
1897 - 1988
Benny Rubin
1899 - 1986
John Patrick Higgins
1893 - 1955
Frank Silver
1892 - 1960
Evelyn Ellis
1894 - 1958
Billy Hill (songwriter)
1899 - 1940
Mickey Roach
1895 - 1977
Catherine Filene Shouse
1896 - 1994
Martha Foley
1897 - 1977
Hugh Parker Guiler
1898 - 1985
Roger Putnam
1893 - 1972
Alexander Haggerty Krappe
1894 - 1947
Katharine Lane Weems
1899 - 1989
Charles Brickley
1891 - 1949
Rudolf Ernest Langer
1894 - 1968
Laurence Curtis
1893 - 1989
Joseph Slepian
1891 - 1969
Lester Dorr
1893 - 1980
George Falcke
1891 - 1979
Thomas A. Flaherty
1898 - 1965
Edwin Francis Carpenter
1898 - 1963
Louis Wolff
1898 - 1972
Philip Grosser
1890 - 1933
Al Pierotti
1895 - 1964
Arthur Emmons Raymond
1899 - 1999
James Henigan
1892 - 1950
Edith Philips
1892 - 1983
Marita Bonner
1899 - 1972
Charles R. Codman
1893 - 1956
Jens Fredrick Larson
1891 - 1981
Eric Francis MacKenzie
1893 - 1969
Tracy Putnam
1894 - 1975
David Endicott Putnam
1898 - 1918
Julius Chaloff
1892 - 1979
Henry Botkin
1896 - 1983
John Hynes (politician)
1897 - 1970
William A. Worton
1897 - 1973
Louis de Rochemont
1899 - 1978
Richard R. Peabody
1892 - 1936
Stephen Gill Spottswood
1897 - 1974
Howard Deering Johnson
1897 - 1972
Frederick Bradlee
1892 - 1970
Mason Sears
1899 - 1973
Louis M. Lyons
1897 - 1982
Phelps Putnam
1894 - 1948
Jennie Loitman Barron
1891 - 1969
Harold Buckley Willis
1890 - 1962
Harold Anderson (illustrator)
1894 - 1973
Ernst Hoffmann (conductor)
1899 - 1956
Albert Francis Hegenberger
1895 - 1983
Edith Achilles
1892 - 1989
Al Maginnes
1897 - 1966
Burleigh Cruikshank
1890 - 1982
James Fitzgerald
1899 - 1971
Thomas Patrick Thornton
1898 - 1985
Elijah Adlow
1896 - 1982
Frank Morrissey
1899 - 1968
Robert Levenson
1897 - 1961
Herb Hunter
1895 - 1970
Robert Treat Paine Storer
1893 - 1962
Edward C. Johnson II
1898 - 1984
Robert M. Webster
1892 - 1972
George Twombly
1892 - 1975
Edith Grace White
1890 - 1975
George Ferguson (actor)
1890 - 1961
Murray Mencher
1898 - 1991
Leonora Bilger
1893 - 1975
Gertrude Nason
1890 - 1969
Dick King (American football)
1895 - 1930
Michael J. Perkins
1899 - 1918
Edith Sigourney
1895 - 1982
Bill Anderson (1920s pitcher)
1895 - 1983
Vedah Bertram
1891 - 1912
Louise Lorimer
1898 - 1995
Al Lee
Born 1893
Edward Whitney
Born 1891
Claude Davidson
1896 - 1956
Louis Kelterborn
1891 - 1933
Walter Whalen
1898 - 1966
Lillian Cotton
1892 - 1962
D. Leo Daley
1895 - 1979
Marty Shay
1896 - 1951
Thomas Francis Hickey (general)
1898 - 1983
Joseph A. Langone Jr.
1896 - 1960
Henry Bostick
1895 - 1968
Tom Connolly (third baseman)
1892 - 1966
William B. Turner
1892 - 1918
Clementina Poto Langone
1896 - 1964
Tom Woods (American football)
1896 - 1978
Tom Sullivan (1920s pitcher)
1895 - 1962
John Rolly Ross
1899 - 1963
Frederick Cunningham
1898 - 1978
Rose Pitonof
1895 - 1984
A. Austin Tate
1894 - 1943
Dennis Gildea
1898 - 1976
Henry Parkman Jr.
1894 - 1958
William B. Colleary
1890 - 1973
Edward F. Lyons Jr.
1899 - 1990
John A. Shelburne
1894 - 1978
Charlie Wrack
1899 - 1979
Flora Foster
1898 - 1914