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
- Field: Lawyer Clear ×
Hugh S. Legaré
1797 - 1843
Archibald Bulloch
1730 - 1777
William Loughton Smith
1758 - 1812
William F. De Saussure
1792 - 1870
Philip Phillips (lawyer)
1807 - 1884
James Conner (general)
1829 - 1883
Charles James McDonald
1793 - 1860
George S. Patton (attorney)
1856 - 1927
Thomas Bee
1739 - 1812
Charles P. Snyder
1847 - 1915
Samuel Dibble
1837 - 1913
Archibald Grimké
1849 - 1930
Calvary Morris
1798 - 1871
Thomas Lowndes (congressman)
1766 - 1843
James Edwin Belser
1805 - 1859
Julius Waties Waring
1880 - 1968
Peter Manigault
1731 - 1773
Charles Henry Simonton
1829 - 1904
Bruce Howe Hendricks
Born 1957
H. Rodgin Cohen
Born 1944
Michael P. Mills
Born 1956
Raphael J. Moses
1812 - 1893
David A. Faber
Born 1942
Benjamin Cudworth Yancey Jr.
1817 - 1891
Margaret Workman
Born 1947
Frederick Grimke
1791 - 1863
John Thomas Copenhaver Jr.
Born 1925
Leon Stavrinakis
-
Harriet C. Babbitt
Born 1947
Patrick Michael Duffy
Born 1943
Booth Goodwin
Born 1971
Charlie Condon
-
Thomas Lee (South Carolina)
1769 - 1839
Jess H. Dickinson
Born 1947
Franklin J. Moses Sr.
1804 - 1877
Elizabeth Virginia Hallanan
1925 - 2004
Edward McCrady
1802 - 1892
Thomas E. Johnston
Born 1967
John A. Field Jr.
1910 - 1995
Meshea Poore
Born 1975
George Hughes Revercomb
1929 - 1993
B. Campbell Thornal
1908 - 1970
Ivor F. Boiarsky
1920 - 1971
Henry Augustus Middleton Smith
1853 - 1924
George Seabrook Bryan
1809 - 1905
Solomon Heydenfeldt
1816 - 1890
Charles Breckenridge Faris
1867 - 1938
James Kay Thomas
1902 - 1969
Joseph W. Morris (educator)
1850 - 1913
Robert Budd Gilchrist
1796 - 1856
Isaac Stockton Keith Ogier
1819 - 1861
Wheeler Mellette Tillman
Born 1941