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 60 of 1,016 notable people

0019 ACTOR

Jo Van Fleet

1914 - 1996

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0026 PLAYER

Don Budge

1915 - 2000

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0041 ACTOR

Kenneth Tobey

1917 - 2002

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0046 POET

Robert Duncan (poet)

1919 - 1988

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0067 WRITER

Anthony Boucher

1911 - 1968

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0070 ACTIVIST

Fred Korematsu

1919 - 2005

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0077 ACTOR

Gordon Jones (actor)

1911 - 1963

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0084 PREACHER

David Berg

1919 - 1994

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0132 ACTOR

Herbert Anderson

1917 - 1994

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0144 ARTIST

Everett Ruess

1914 - 1934

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0148 COMPOSER

Russell Garcia (composer)

1916 - 2011

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0154 ACTOR

Jack Soo

1917 - 1979

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0156 SPRINT

Archie Williams

1915 - 1993

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0185 ARCHITECT

John Carl Warnecke

1919 - 2010

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0197 MATHEMATICIAN

Ralph S. Phillips

1913 - 1998

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0235 BUSINESS

Julio Gallo

1910 - 1993

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0241 COSTUME DESIGNER

Miles White

1914 - 2000

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0252 PAINTER

Dong Kingman

1911 - 2000

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0295 MUSIC

Wally Rose

1913 - 1997

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0308 PHYSICIST

Clyde Wiegand

1915 - 1996

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0310 PLAYER

Frank Kovacs

1919 - 1990

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0321 ROWER

Winslow Hall (rower)

1912 - 1995

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0337 ASTROPHYSICIST

Daniel M. Popper

1913 - 1999

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0340 ACTOR

Sally Phipps

1911 - 1978

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0349 MODEL

Florence Wysinger Allen

1913 - 1997

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0357 WRITER

Toshio Mori

1910 - 1980

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0358 BANDLEADER

Jake Porter

1916 - 1993

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0362 CONDUCTOR

Howard Mitchell

1911 - 1988

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0366 ENTOMOLOGIST

Earle Gorton Linsley

1910 - 2000

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0390 POLITICIAN

John F. Baldwin Jr.

1915 - 1966

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0424 BASEBALL

Joe Abreu

1913 - 1993

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0439 ARTIST

Howard Brodie

1915 - 2010

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0450 ACTOR

John Larkin (actor, born 1912)

1912 - 1965

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0451 ZOOLOGIST

Carl B. Koford

1915 - 1979

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0476 BOTANIST

Homer John Scoggan

1911 - 1986

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0488 WRITER

Keith Robertson (writer)

1914 - 1991

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0494 LAWYER

John Lansdale Jr.

1912 - 2003

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0503 CARTOONIST

Marty Links

1917 - 2008

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0507 BASEBALL

Cookie Lavagetto

1912 - 1990

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0510 MUSIC

John Milton Ward IV

1917 - 2011

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0525 BASEBALL

Jim Tobin

1912 - 1969

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0584 POET

Rosalie Moore

1910 - 2001

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0596 PHOTOGRAPHER

Homer Page

1918 - 1985

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0639 MILITAR

David C. Waybur

1919 - 1945

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0659 AUTHOR

Ruth Leach Amonette

1916 - 2004

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0661 POLITICIAN

George Miller Jr.

1914 - 1969

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0670 BASEBALL

Bill Brenzel

1910 - 1979

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0689 POLITICIAN

John A. Nejedly

1914 - 2006

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0700 FOOTBALL

Chuck Fenenbock

1917 - 1998

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0703 FOOTBALL

Harry Mattos

1911 - 1992

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0768 POLITICIAN

Don Mulford

1915 - 2000

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0774 SINGER

Brian Sullivan (singer)

1912 - 1969

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0797 BASEBALL

Linc Blakely

1912 - 1976

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0811 BASEBALL

Ray Lamanno

1919 - 1994

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0849 BASEBALL

Ed Fernandes

1918 - 1968

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0880 CHEMIST

Lloyd Noel Ferguson

1918 - 2011

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0890 BASEBALL

Len Gabrielson (first baseman)

1915 - 2000

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0901 REAL ESTATE

Don Graham (developer)

1914 - 2010

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0955 LAWYER

Lloyd Hudson Burke

1916 - 1988

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1001 BASEBALL

Eddie Leishman

1910 - 1972

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