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
- Field: Mathematician Clear ×
John McCarthy (computer scientist)
1927 - 2011
Alan Sokal
Born 1955
Richard M. Karp
Born 1935
Elliott H. Lieb
Born 1932
Robin Hartshorne
Born 1938
George Mostow
1923 - 2017
William Fogg Osgood
1864 - 1943
Daniel Gorenstein
1923 - 1992
Maxime Bôcher
1867 - 1918
John Winthrop (educator)
1714 - 1779
Victor Guillemin
Born 1937
Amie Wilkinson
Born 1968
Lloyd N. Trefethen
Born 1955
Hartry Field
Born 1946
Bjorn Poonen
Born 1968
William Edward Story
1850 - 1930
Andrea Bertozzi
Born 1965
Griffith C. Evans
1887 - 1973
Steven Kleiman
Born 1942
David Gilbarg
1918 - 2001
John Little (academic)
Born 1928
Joseph Lovering
1813 - 1892
Jonathan Lazare Alperin
Born 1937
Hugo Rossi
Born 1935
Bryna Kra
Born 1966
Maurice Heins
1915 - 2015
Sumner Byron Myers
1910 - 1955
Isaac Greenwood
1702 - 1745
Rudolf Ernest Langer
1894 - 1968
Joel Lee Brenner
1912 - 1997
Harry Pollard (mathematician)
1919 - 1985
Robert Morris (cryptographer)
1932 - 2011
Elliot Koffman
Born 1942
Arnold S. Shapiro
1921 - 1962
Wilfred Kaplan
1915 - 2007
John Benedetto
Born 1939
Herbert Gross
1929 - 2020
Joseph A. Zilber
1923 - 2009
Daniel Rider
1938 - 2008
George W. Brown (academic)
1917 - 2005
Barbara McMartin
1931 - 2005
Webster Wells
1851 - 1916
Roxana Vivian
1871 - 1961
Arthur Veinott
1934 - 2012
Theodore W. Palmer
Born 1935