41.2568° N, 81.8815° W
CLEVELAND
Most Famous People Born in Cleveland, United States
- Notable people
- 2,168
- Peak decade
- 1950s
- Median birth year
- 1942
- Most distinctive
- Baseball 6.3×
A Great Lakes industrial city whose distinctive professions are baseball at six times the global rate, novelists, screenwriters, music, and basketball — the shape of a postwar industrial city that built a deep entertainment-and-letters bench out of its working-class neighbourhoods. Halle Berry, Henry Mancini, Jerry Siegel (who invented Superman here with Joe Shuster), and Tracy Chapman all belong to this bench. The 19th-century tail is thin; the city was essentially built by the oil and steel booms of the 1890s.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Cleveland during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 303 notable births.
What Cleveland Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Football is Cleveland's biggest profession — 10% of all notables (226).
Cleveland over-indexes on baseball — 6.3× the global rate.
Cleveland under-produces politician — only 0.6× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Cleveland's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Film & TV
- Politics & Law
- Music
- Writing
- Science
- Other
George O'Brien (baseball)
1889 - 1966
Barbara Burgess
1950 - 2001
Goat Anderson
1880 - 1923
Charles Joseph McNamee
1890 - 1964
George F. Brock
1872 - 1914
Max M. Axelrod
1911 - 2004
Wally Shannon
1933 - 1992
Mary Helen Washington
Born 1941
Robert Livingston Ireland Jr.
1895 - 1981
Elmer Weingartner
1918 - 2009
Hank Ruszkowski
1925 - 2000
George Moran (Musiker)
1954 - 2002
Derek Foore
Born 1988
Herbert C. Rodd
1894 - 1932
John P. Scripps
1913 - 1989
Cleota Collins
1893 - 1976
Geraldine Edwards
-
Esa Ahmad
Born 1996
Len Perme
1917 - 2009
Georgie Stone
1909 - 2010
George Rettger
1868 - 1921
Nancy Ledins
1932 - 2017
Ja'Ron K. Smith
-
Leonard J. Stern
1904 - 1988
Richard Perchlik
1928 - 1988
Thomas P. Carney
1941 - 2019
Bill Melis
Born 1960
Ray Rottas
1927 - 2011
Erwin Gehrke
1898 - 1966
John Swiderski
Born 1975
Bill Lobe
1912 - 1969
James K. Knowles
1931 - 2009
Cookie Lommel
Born 1970
Tony Harris (Footballspieler)
Born 1949
Ernest Westfield
Born 1939
Benjamin Wolvin
1857 - 1932
Pat Collier Frank
Born 1929
Janet Coats
Born 1963
Edward Frederick Sanderson
1874 - 1955
Frank Kesson
1885 - 1939
Jason Perry (Arena football)
Born 1984
Thomas Alexander Murphree
1883 - 1945
Robert M. Elton
Born 1932
Lloyd E. Gressle
1918 - 1999
Tonisha Baker
Born 1990
Walter Lyman Upson
1877 - 1974
C. Davison Ankney
1946 - 2013
Jan Evans
1937 - 2000
Leigh Bongiorno
-
James DeLong Williamson
1849 - 1935
Hal Cihlar
1914 - 1995
Myles D. Evans
1901 - 1982
Ed Kusel
1886 - 1948
Ruth W. Helmuth
1918 - 1997
Otto Oscar Wiegand
Born 1860
Terrance Owens
-
Albert J. Weatherhead Jr.
Born 1892
Joe Montgomery
-
Harold Paddock Jr.
1920 - 2000
Simon F. Wehrwein
1869 - 1938
Kim Abbott
-
Bennie Schall
1917 - 1998
Roger A. Keats
Born 1948
Tavares Bolden
Born 1979
Robert Ellis (mathematician)
1926 - 2013
Bert Delotto
-
Eugene Szmuc
1927 - 1976
Lauma Zušēvica
Born 1954