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 1910s Clear ×
Robert Burns Woodward
1917 - 1979
Robert Lowell
1917 - 1977
Richard Scarry
1919 - 1994
Mary Carlisle
1914 - 2018
Betty Field
1916 - 1973
McGeorge Bundy
1919 - 1996
Alexander Mackendrick
1912 - 1993
Lillian Roth
1910 - 1980
Richard Evans Schultes
1915 - 2001
George C. Homans
1910 - 1989
Carroll Quigley
1910 - 1977
Sonny Tufts
1911 - 1970
Harry Carney
1910 - 1974
Vaughn Taylor (actor)
1910 - 1983
Norman Corwin
1910 - 2011
James MacGregor Burns
1918 - 2014
Veda Ann Borg
1915 - 1973
John Ciardi
1916 - 1986
Jack Levine
1915 - 2010
Leslie H. Martinson
1915 - 2016
Albert K. Cohen
1918 - 2014
Albert Lord
1912 - 1991
Conrad Marca-Relli
1913 - 2000
Babe Paley
1915 - 1978
Frank Robbins
1917 - 1994
William Bundy
1917 - 2000
Fred F. Sears
1913 - 1957
Tasha Tudor
1915 - 2008
Irving Fine
1914 - 1962
Dan Kiley
1912 - 2004
Kenny Delmar
1910 - 1984
Eliot Noyes
1910 - 1977
Dave Lambert (American jazz vocalist)
1917 - 1966
Jan Miner
1917 - 2004
Sid Ramin
1919 - 2019
Barbara Mullen
1914 - 1979
Jerry Gray (arranger)
1915 - 1976
Anne Nagel
1915 - 1966
Richard Murphy (screenwriter)
1912 - 1993
Ward Costello
1919 - 2009
Charles Brenner (psychiatrist)
1913 - 2008
David Park (painter)
1911 - 1960
David Gilbarg
1918 - 2001
Paul Zoll
1911 - 1999
Sydney Joseph Freedberg
1914 - 1997
Charles Francis Adams IV
1910 - 1999
Francis Woodman Cleaves
1911 - 1995
Matilda White Riley
1911 - 2004
Vincent Dethier
1915 - 1993
William Rosenberg
1916 - 2002
James A. Burke (Massachusetts politician)
1910 - 1983
Toots Mondello
1911 - 1992
Charlie Holmes
1910 - 1985
Joseph Francis Maguire
1919 - 2014
Ben Benson
1915 - 1959
Curt Conway
1915 - 1974
Bernice Giduz Schubert
1913 - 2000
Vic Heyliger
1912 - 2006
Herbert L. Strock
1918 - 2005
William H. Blanchard
1916 - 1966
Miriam Davenport
1915 - 1999
Joseph L. Melnick
1914 - 2001
Alice Mossie Brues
1913 - 2007
Arthur Marder
1910 - 1980
Helen Johns (swimmer)
1914 - 2014
Maurice Heins
1915 - 2015
Nicholas Christofilos
1916 - 1972
Barbara Washburn
1914 - 2014
Sumner Byron Myers
1910 - 1955
Maxwell M. Rabb
1910 - 2002
Sal Bartolo
1917 - 2002
Fannie Hillsmith
1911 - 2007
Milt Raskin
1916 - 1977
Bob Wood (comics)
1918 - 1962
Joel Lee Brenner
1912 - 1997
Edward Downes (American musicologist)
1911 - 2001
Gilman Rankin
1911 - 1993
Turk Van Lake
1918 - 2002
Harry Pollard (mathematician)
1919 - 1985
Gordon A. MacDonald
1911 - 1978
David Powers
1912 - 1998
Jean B. Fletcher
1915 - 1965
Walter R. Mansfield
1911 - 1987
Patricia Knight
1915 - 2004
John F. Collins
1919 - 1995
Carl Frederick Tandberg
1910 - 1988
Marjorie Harris Carr
1915 - 1998
Isabelle Raubitschek
1914 - 1988
Frederick Hartt
1914 - 1991
Robert Rimmer
1917 - 2001
Lawrence Joseph Riley
1914 - 2001
Abraham M. Halpern
1914 - 1985
Wilfred Kaplan
1915 - 2007
Charles Edward Pratt
1911 - 1996
Joe Rinaldi
1914 - 1974
Francis Russell (author)
1910 - 1989
Phil Rasmussen
1918 - 2005
Peg LaCentra
1910 - 1996
Max Pavey
1918 - 1957
Grant Gilmore
1910 - 1982
Carl Alpert
1913 - 2005
Ray Perry
1915 - 1950
Muriel Rahn
1911 - 1961
Lorna Thayer
1919 - 2005
Henry Hewes
1917 - 2006
Robert Livingston (scientist)
1918 - 2002
Robert Richenburg
1917 - 2006
Alfred Browning Parker
1916 - 2011
Richard Solomon (psychologist)
1918 - 1995
Gennaro Angiulo
1919 - 2009
Biff Liff
1919 - 2015
Kay Twomey
1914 - 1995
Anton Leader
1913 - 1988
Henry Oliver Hansen
1919 - 1945
Carl J. Shapiro
Born 1913
John R. P. French
1913 - 1995
Eddie Pellagrini
1918 - 2006
John Alevizos
1919 - 2005
Rene di Rosa
1919 - 2010
George W. Brown (academic)
1917 - 2005
Edward Thaddeus Lawton
1913 - 1966
Jean de Koven
1915 - 1937
Howard P. Boyd
1914 - 2011
Paul Franke
1917 - 2011
William J. McCarthy
1919 - 1998
James Moran Sr.
1912 - 1983
Patricia Clapp
1912 - 2003
Ken Weekes
1912 - 1998
Leonard Broom
1911 - 2009
Hy White
1915 - 2011
Salty Brine
1918 - 2004
William Fuller
Born 1913
Johnny Catron
1916 - 1998
Frederick C. Murphy
1918 - 1945
Jean Gordon (Red Cross)
1915 - 1946
Tracy Montminy
1911 - 1992
Francis Carlyle
1912 - 1975
Virginia Walker
1916 - 1946
Beatrice M. Sweeney
1914 - 1989
Wally Peterson
1917 - 2011
Eleanor Ruggles
1916 - 2008
Casey Walters
1916 - 1991
Sam Gentile
1916 - 1998
Richard McNamara
1915 - 1998
Frederick T. Moore Jr.
1914 - 1969
Maurice Tarplin
1911 - 1975
Edward Brodney
1910 - 2002
John E. Powers
1910 - 1998
Melvin Swig
1917 - 1993
Roger W. Cutler Jr.
1916 - 1986
Moody Sarno
1914 - 1997
Tom Earley
1917 - 1988
Allan Angoff
1910 - 1998
Bill Mills (baseball)
1919 - 2019
Jim Zyntell
1910 - 1992
Frances Jalet-Cruz
1910 - 1994
Calvin Plimpton
1918 - 2007
Herman Nickerson Jr.
1913 - 2000
Samuel Krafsur
1913 - 1983
Elizabeth Metayer
1911 - 1998
Dimitri Zaitz
1917 - 1996
Joe Walsh (NL infielder)
1917 - 1996
Raymond Francis Robbins
1912 - 1980
E. Alexander Bergstrom
1919 - 1973
Robert Hagopian
1911 - 1995
Richard W. Day (educator)
1916 - 1978
Chico Scimone
1911 - 2005
Herbert N. Maletz
1913 - 2002
Giles Tod
1914 - 1995
Anthony T. Shtogren
1917 - 2003
John Joseph Doherty
1919 - 1942
Henry A. Miley Jr.
1915 - 2010
George Heyliger
1919 - 1942
John F. O'Halloran
1914 - 1968
David B. Williams (politician)
1919 - 1994
Arthur S. Collins Jr.
1915 - 1984
Mary Whittemore
Born 1913