6.4500° N, 3.4000° E
LAGOS
Most Famous People Born in Lagos, Nigeria
- Notable people
- 795
- Peak decade
- 1980s
- Median birth year
- 1983
- Most distinctive
- Songwriter 7.5×
A football factory in a city of twenty million. More than two in five of Lagos's notable births play professional football — the highest share of any single profession in any city in the dataset — and most of the rest are basketball players, boxers, activists, and the songwriters of Afrobeats. Almost everyone is born after 1960, and almost everyone leaves at some point to play somewhere else.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Lagos during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1980s with 252 notable births.
What Lagos Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Football is Lagos's biggest profession — 43% of all notables (343).
Lagos over-indexes on songwriter — 7.5× the global rate.
Lagos under-produces politician — only 0.3× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Lagos's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Politics & Law
- Film & TV
- Music
- Art & Design
- Writing
- Other
- Filtered to 1910s Clear ×
Taslim Olawale Elias
1914 - 1991
Ambrose Campbell
1919 - 2006
Kofoworola Abeni Pratt
1910 - 1992
Ayinde Bakare
1912 - 1972
Akintola Williams
Born 1919
Adeyinka Oyekan
1911 - 2003
Tunde King
1910 - 1980
Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi
1910 - 1971
Bode Thomas
1918 - 1953
Kofoworola Ademola
1913 - 2002
Tunji Sowande
1912 - 1996
Olatunji Ajisomo Alabi
1915 - 1998