55.8610° N, 4.2512° W
GLASGOW
Most Famous People Born in Glasgow, United Kingdom
- Notable people
- 3,305
- Peak decade
- 1950s
- Median birth year
- 1943
- Most distinctive
- Football 3.8×
A football city, almost unhealthily so. More than forty per cent of Glasgow's notables are footballers — Old Firm shaped a city's entire celebrity economy — and the next bench down is the actors and singers of a Scottish stage tradition that has produced James McAvoy, Robbie Coltrane, and Mark Knopfler. The 19th-century Clyde shipbuilding boom is the peak that most of the rest of the bench grew out of, and there is also an unusually deep comedy lineage from the working men's clubs that the strict statistical panel doesn't capture but that gave the world Billy Connolly.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Glasgow during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 337 notable births.
What Glasgow Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Football is Glasgow's biggest profession — 42% of all notables (1,378).
Glasgow over-indexes on football — 3.8× the global rate.
Glasgow under-produces writer — only 0.6× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Glasgow's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Politics & Law
- Film & TV
- Writing
- Science
- Music
- Other
- Field: Writer Clear ×
Peter May (writer)
Born 1951
Alasdair Gray
1934 - 2019
Benjamin Creme
1922 - 2016
James Kelman
Born 1946
Christopher Brookmyre
Born 1968
Kenneth White
Born 1936
William Black (novelist)
1841 - 1898
Alexander Trocchi
1925 - 1984
Andrew O'Hagan
Born 1968
John Fraser (actor)
Born 1931
Robert Barr (writer)
1849 - 1912
Iain Crichton Smith
1928 - 1998
James Bridie
1888 - 1951
Manda Scott
Born 1962
Graham McNeill
Born 1971
Debi Gliori
Born 1959
Nigel Tranter
1909 - 2000
Alfred Walter Stewart
1880 - 1947
Anna Murdoch Mann
Born 1944
Andrew Crumey
Born 1961
Lynn Ferguson
Born 1965
Margaret Todd (doctor)
1859 - 1918
Alex Gray (author)
Born 1950
Peter Gowan
1946 - 2009
Robin Neillands
1935 - 2006
W. Murdoch Duncan
1909 - 1976
Nieves Mathews
1917 - 2003
Ann Marie Di Mambro
Born 1950
Caro Ramsay
-
Tormod MacGill-Eain
1936 - 2017
Sarah Moss
Born 1975
Edmund Noble
1853 - 1937
Chris Boyce
1943 - 1999
David MacLennan (theatre practitioner)
1948 - 2014
Marion Kirkland Reid
1815 - 1902
Janet Adam Smith
1905 - 1999
Thomas Rothschild
Born 1942
Elizabeth Mavor
1927 - 2013
Robert Boyd (university principal)
1578 - 1627
Anthony Scott Veitch
1914 - 1983
James Campbell (author)
Born 1951
Frances M Hendry
Born 1941
Malcolm Brodie (journalist)
1926 - 2013
David McRobbie
Born 1934
John Martin Littlejohn
1865 - 1947
Isabella Smith Andrews
1905 - 1990
Barry Graham
Born 1966
Arthur Thomson (fanzines)
1927 - 1990
Andrew Gray (writer)
Born 1968
Dorothea Gérard
1855 - 1915
James Ronald
1905 - 1972
Jack Gerson
1928 - 2012
Nancy Brysson Morrison
1903 - 1986
Jane Cross Simpson
1811 - 1886
Denzil Meyrick
Born 1965
Marty Ross
-
Al Hewetson
1946 - 2004
Keith Stevenson (writer)
-
George Joseph
Born 1912
Michael Kerins
Born 1952
Gordon Brown (author)
-
Simon Boyle (chef)
-
Stephen G. Watts
1910 - 1996