34.4348° N, 81.0284° W
CHARLESTON
Most Famous People Born in Charleston, United States
- Notable people
- 749
- Peak decade
- 1940s
- Median birth year
- 1920
- Most distinctive
- Baseball 4.5×
Charleston's profile is frozen in antebellum amber: an outsized Lawyer and Judge class built by the planter bar that dominated South Carolina politics from secession through Reconstruction, with an Officer bench propped up by the Citadel and the Confederate officer corps. The smaller, stranger note is the Novelist thread — Charleston Renaissance writers like DuBose Heyward, whose Porgy became the seed for American opera.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Charleston during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1940s with 63 notable births.
What Charleston Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Politician is Charleston's biggest profession — 22% of all notables (166).
Charleston over-indexes on baseball — 4.5× the global rate.
Charleston under-produces writer — only 0.6× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Charleston's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Politics & Law
- Sports
- Film & TV
- Music
- Writing
- Science
- Other
- Filtered to 1780s Clear ×
Robert Mills (architect)
1781 - 1855
James Gadsden
1788 - 1858
James Hamilton Jr.
1786 - 1857
Arthur P. Hayne
1788 - 1867
Thomas Bennett Jr.
1781 - 1865
Robert Roberts (butler)
1780 - 1860
John Linscom Boss Jr.
1780 - 1819
Charles Fraser (artist)
1782 - 1860
Barnard E. Bee Sr.
1787 - 1853
John Izard Middleton
1785 - 1849
Christopher Edwards Gadsden
1785 - 1852
Jehu Jones
1786 - 1852
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (Vizegouverneur) – W
1789 - 1865