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 1860s Clear ×
William A. Moffett
1869 - 1933
Wilson Godfrey Harvey
1866 - 1932
Rodrigues Ottolengui
1861 - 1937
William Elliott Gonzales
1866 - 1937
Rich T. Buckler
1865 - 1950
Dunbar Rowland
1864 - 1937
Pat Luby
1869 - 1899
Miriam Benjamin
1861 - 1947
DeRosey Caroll Cabell
1861 - 1924
Beverley Sitgreaves
1863 - 1943
Louis H. Galbreath
1861 - 1899
Charles Breckenridge Faris
1867 - 1938
William Henry Cling
1866 - 1937
William Hall Moreland
1861 - 1946