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 1820s Clear ×
Henry Timrod
1828 - 1867
Barnard Elliott Bee Jr.
1824 - 1861
William H. Hunt
1823 - 1884
James Skivring Smith
1825 - 1892
William Porcher Miles
1822 - 1899
Hamilton P. Bee
1822 - 1897
James Conner (general)
1829 - 1883
Thomas Caute Reynolds
1821 - 1887
James Petigru Boyce
1827 - 1888
Wilmot Gibbes de Saussure
1822 - 1886
William Henry Trescot
1822 - 1898
Julia C. R. Dorr
1825 - 1913
Charles Henry Simonton
1829 - 1904
Arthur Middleton Manigault
1824 - 1886
Henry Clay Lewis
1825 - 1850
William James Rivers
1822 - 1909
Charles C. Tew
1827 - 1862
Frances Elizabeth Barrow
1822 - 1894
James Matthews Legaré
1823 - 1859
Harriet Starr Cannon
1823 - 1896
John Beaufain Irving
1825 - 1877
Thomas M. Wagner
1824 - 1862
Thomas Pinckney (American Civil War)
1828 - 1915
Edward Bunker (Mormon)
1822 - 1901
Joseph Henderson (pilot)
1826 - 1890
John P. Bankhead
1821 - 1867
Boston Jenkins Drayton
1821 - 1866
Thomas Young Simons
1828 - 1878
Marie Siegling
1824 - 1920