37.9074° N, 121.0764° W

OAKLAND

Most Famous People Born in Oakland, United States

Notable people
1,016
Peak decade
1940s
Median birth year
1949
Most distinctive
Rapper 23.4×

The Rapper bench here runs at better than twenty-three times the global baseline — Too $hort, MC Hammer, and the entire Bay Area hyphy lineage compressed into one line of the panel, a regional rap dialect invented the way New Orleans invented jazz. The deep Baseball count is the other Oakland story, the A's dynasty years and the West Oakland sandlots that produced Rickey Henderson, while the outsized Artist bench still runs on Black Panther-era visual culture.

Through the Decades

One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Oakland during each.

Notable Births by Decade

Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1940s with 138 notable births.

What Oakland Is Known For

Click any row to filter the list of people below.

Football is Oakland's biggest profession — 12% of all notables (118).

Oakland over-indexes on rapper23.4× the global rate.

Oakland under-produces politician — only 0.4× the global rate.

  1. Football118
  2. Baseball102
  3. Actor85
  4. Basket52
  5. Politician50
  6. Music47
  7. Singer35
  8. Artist35
  1. Rapper2623.4×
  2. Baseball1028.8×
  3. Basket524.1×
  4. Artist353.4×
  5. Music473.2×
  6. Novelist112.7×
  7. Film241.9×
  8. Lawyer321.8×
  1. Politician500.4×
  2. Writer230.7×

Profession Mix Over Time

Each band shows a profession family's share of Oakland's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.

18001825185018751900192519501975
  • Sports
  • Music
  • Film & TV
  • Politics & Law
  • Writing
  • Art & Design
  • Other
All1,016
Sort By

Showing 29 of 1,016 notable people

0035 SCREENWRITER

Sidney Howard

1891 - 1939

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0163 ACTOR

Vivien Oakland

1895 - 1958

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0186 POLITICIAN

Frank M. Dixon

1892 - 1965

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0192 ACTOR

Lloyd Hamilton

1891 - 1935

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0199 CINEMA

James Van Trees

1890 - 1973

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0231 BASKET

Albert White (diver)

1895 - 1982

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0278 ACTOR

Fern Emmett

1896 - 1946

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0302 OFFICER

Harry W. Hill

1890 - 1971

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0341 GOVERNOR

Ford Quint Elvidge

1892 - 1980

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0343 BANDLEADER

Anson Weeks

1896 - 1969

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0347 FILM

Herman C. Raymaker

1893 - 1944

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0381 POLITICIAN

John J. Allen Jr.

1899 - 1995

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0486 HISTORIAN

Phyllis Ackerman

1893 - 1977

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0526 BASEBALL

Irish Meusel

1893 - 1963

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0534 BASEBALL

Lew Fonseca

1899 - 1989

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0589 BASEBALL

Ray Kremer

1893 - 1965

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0591 BUSINESS

Charles M. White

1891 - 1977

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0630 ARTIST

Estelle Peck Ishigo

1899 - 1990

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0692 BASEBALL

Tom Fitzsimmons

1890 - 1971

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0761 ACTOR

Orville Caldwell

1896 - 1967

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0764 ACTOR

R. Henry Grey

1891 - 1934

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0766 AUTHOR

Virgil Markham

1899 - 1973

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0773 FOOTBALL

Ken Crawford (American football)

1898 - 1957

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0823 BASEBALL

Pat Bohen

1890 - 1942

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0860 COMPOSER

Jay Roberts

1890 - 1932

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0879 BASEBALL

Charlie Flannigan

1891 - 1930

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0917 DIARIST

Emily Coleman

1899 - 1979

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0929 BASEBALL

Red Baldwin

1894 - 1956

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0992 LAWYER

Oliver Deveta Hamlin Jr.

1892 - 1973

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