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 1790s Clear ×
Sarah Moore Grimké
1792 - 1873
Hugh S. Legaré
1797 - 1843
Charles Bent
1799 - 1847
Lavinia Fisher
1793 - 1820
Floride Calhoun
1792 - 1866
Henry L. Pinckney
1794 - 1863
William F. De Saussure
1792 - 1870
Charles James McDonald
1793 - 1860
Isaac E. Holmes
1796 - 1867
Maria Martin
1796 - 1863
Calvary Morris
1798 - 1871
Charles I. du Pont
1797 - 1869
Samuel Henry Dickson
1798 - 1872
Penina Moise
1797 - 1880
Frederick Grimke
1791 - 1863
William Henry Timrod
1792 - 1838
Jacob Æmilius Irving
1797 - 1856
Robert Budd Gilchrist
1796 - 1856