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.

Through the Decades

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 novelist3.5× the global rate.

Boston under-produces football — only 0.2× the global rate.

  1. Actor314
  2. Politician312
  3. Writer149
  4. Lawyer135
  5. Baseball110
  6. Painter106
  7. Music102
  8. Football87
  1. Novelist503.5×
  2. Baseball1102.6×
  3. Officer632.6×
  4. Mathematician452.5×
  5. Lawyer1352.1×
  6. Music1021.9×
  7. Diplomat371.7×
  8. Actor3141.6×
  1. Football870.2×

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.

16501700175018001850190019502000
  • Politics & Law
  • Sports
  • Writing
  • Film & TV
  • Science
  • Music
  • Other
Diplomat37
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Showing 37 of 3,663 notable people

0128 DIPLOMAT

Joseph Grew

1880 - 1965

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0264 DIPLOMAT

Adolf A. Berle

1895 - 1971

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0496 DIPLOMAT

Peter Galbraith

Born 1950

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0542 DIPLOMAT

Alexander Vershbow

Born 1952

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0550 DIPLOMAT

Mark Andrew Green

Born 1960

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0625 DIPLOMAT

Nathaniel Davis

1925 - 2011

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0703 DIPLOMAT

Alexander Hill Everett

1792 - 1847

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0723 DIPLOMAT

John Moors Cabot

1901 - 1981

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0742 DIPLOMAT

Jeffrey Davidow

Born 1944

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0806 DIPLOMAT

Rufus Gifford

Born 1974

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0813 DIPLOMAT

Richard B. Wigglesworth

1891 - 1960

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1105 DIPLOMAT

Maurice Halperin

1906 - 1995

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1196 DIPLOMAT

James Bowdoin III

1752 - 1811

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1236 DIPLOMAT

Maxwell M. Rabb

1910 - 2002

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1263 DIPLOMAT

Ken Hackett

Born 1947

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1330 DIPLOMAT

Alan Solomont

Born 1957

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1340 DIPLOMAT

Carolina Barco

Born 1951

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1369 DIPLOMAT

Henry Percival Dodge

1870 - 1936

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1397 DIPLOMAT

Walter L. Cutler

Born 1931

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1425 DIPLOMAT

Philip Goldberg

Born 1956

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1586 DIPLOMAT

Francis J. Ricciardone Jr.

Born 1951

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1735 DIPLOMAT

Sarah Sewall

Born 1961

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1847 DIPLOMAT

William Jarvis (merchant)

1770 - 1859

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1848 DIPLOMAT

Richard W. Murphy

Born 1929

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1988 DIPLOMAT

Ellis Loring Dresel

1865 - 1925

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2129 DIPLOMAT

John Temple (diplomat)

1731 - 1798

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2134 DIPLOMAT

Laurence Foley

1942 - 2002

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2204 DIPLOMAT

Marcie Berman Ries

Born 1950

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2245 DIPLOMAT

John Gardner Coolidge

1863 - 1936

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2518 DIPLOMAT

Robert Anderson (diplomat)

1922 - 1996

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2534 DIPLOMAT

David George Newton

Born 1935

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2793 DIPLOMAT

Richard Wayne Bogosian

Born 1937

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2852 DIPLOMAT

Alexander Watson (diplomat)

Born 1939

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2871 DIPLOMAT

Theodore L. Eliot Jr.

1928 - 2019

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3171 DIPLOMAT

George Harrington

1815 - 1892

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3357 DIPLOMAT

Harry E. T. Thayer

1927 - 2017

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3520 DIPLOMAT

Marilyn P. Johnson

Born 1922

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