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: Painter Clear ×
Samuel Morse
1791 - 1872
Winslow Homer
1836 - 1910
Lilla Cabot Perry
1848 - 1933
Abbott Handerson Thayer
1849 - 1921
Albert Henry Munsell
1858 - 1918
Edwin Lord Weeks
1849 - 1903
Thomas Dewing
1851 - 1938
Lois Mailou Jones
1905 - 1998
Jack Levine
1915 - 2010
George Peter Alexander Healy
1813 - 1894
Conrad Marca-Relli
1913 - 2000
Christopher Wool
Born 1955
Dorothy Iannone
Born 1933
Charles Sprague Pearce
1851 - 1914
Walter Gay
1856 - 1937
George Henry Hall (artist)
1825 - 1913
Sargent Claude Johnson
1888 - 1967
Janet Fish
Born 1938
Mather Brown
1761 - 1831
James Wells Champney
1843 - 1903
John Greenwood (artist)
1727 - 1792
David Park (painter)
1911 - 1960
Ralph Wormeley Curtis
1854 - 1922
Elizabeth Boott
1846 - 1888
Samuel Stillman Osgood
1808 - 1885
Susan Hale
1833 - 1910
Perle Fine
1905 - 1988
May Stevens
1924 - 2019
Henry Pelham (engraver)
1749 - 1806
R. H. Quaytman
Born 1961
James Frothingham
1786 - 1864
De Scott Evans
1847 - 1898
Joseph Badger
1707 - 1765
Philip Leslie Hale
1865 - 1931
John Neagle
1796 - 1865
Lucia Fairchild Fuller
1872 - 1924
Jane Stuart
1812 - 1888
Miriam Davenport
1915 - 1999
George Loring Brown
1814 - 1889
Charles Codman
1800 - 1842
Katharine Lane Weems
1899 - 1989
Fannie Hillsmith
1911 - 2007
George Albert Frost
1843 - 1907
Ben Aronson
Born 1958
Louis Kronberg
1872 - 1965
Adelaide Cole Chase
1868 - 1944
Gertrude Fiske
1879 - 1961
Henry Oliver Walker
1843 - 1929
Margaret Fitzhugh Browne
1884 - 1972
Marion Boyd Allen
1862 - 1941
Enoch Wood Perry Jr.
1831 - 1915
Domenic Cretara
1946 - 2017
Edith Barry
1884 - 1960
Wendy Artin
Born 1963
Gretchen Woodman Rogers
1881 - 1967
Burnell Poole
1884 - 1933
Isaiah Thomas (publisher)
1749 - 1831
Makoto Fujimura
Born 1960
Phil Hale
Born 1963
William Parsons Winchester Dana
1833 - 1927
Sears Gallagher
1869 - 1955
Frederic Crowninshield
1845 - 1918
Harriet Hallowell
1873 - 1943
Sophie Matisse
Born 1965
Amy Maria Sacker
1872 - 1965
Henry Botkin
1896 - 1983
David Bowes
Born 1957
Landon Mackenzie
Born 1954
Anne Walker
Born 1933
Ethel Isadore Brown
1871 - 1944
Samuel Burtis Baker
1882 - 1967
Charlotte Gilbertson
1922 - 2014
Samuel Lancaster Gerry
1813 - 1891
Moses Wight
1827 - 1895
Richard Yarde
1939 - 2011
Stephen Salisbury Tuckerman
1830 - 1904
Aaron Fink (artist)
Born 1955
Alexander Pope Jr.
1849 - 1924
Frank Hill Smith
1842 - 1904
Harold Anderson (illustrator)
1894 - 1973
David Kracov
Born 1968
James Fitzgerald
1899 - 1971
Eve Garrison
1903 - 2003
William Jurian Kaula
1871 - 1953
Esther Geller
1921 - 2015
Frederick Dickinson Williams
1829 - 1915
Benjamin Trott (peintre)
1770 - 1841
Ford Crull
Born 1952
Willard MacGregor
1901 - 1993
Deborah Martin
Born 1961
Gertrude Nason
1890 - 1969
Frank A. Brown
1876 - 1962
Hugh Cabot III
1930 - 2005
Edward Brodney
1910 - 2002
Ellen Banks
Born 1938
Wendell Thompson Perkins
1928 - 1997
Lillian Cotton
1892 - 1962
Vincent Pepi
1926 - 2020
Sarah C. Frothingham
1821 - 1861
Zoe Yin
Born 2001
Paul Shapiro (artist)
Born 1930
Raymond Francis Robbins
1912 - 1980
Frank W. Applebee
1902 - 1988
Sarah Gooll Putnam
1851 - 1912
Susan Hinckley Bradley
1851 - 1929
Nathaniel Smibert
1734 - 1756