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.
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 rapper — 23.4× the global rate.
Oakland under-produces politician — only 0.4× the global rate.
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.
- Sports
- Music
- Film & TV
- Politics & Law
- Writing
- Art & Design
- Other
- Field: Actor Clear ×
Mark Hamill
Born 1951
Brandon Lee
1965 - 1993
Mahershala Ali
Born 1974
Lyndsy Fonseca
Born 1987
Shemar Moore
Born 1970
Jo Van Fleet
1914 - 1996
Buster Crabbe
1908 - 1983
Paul Schneider (actor)
Born 1976
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
1905 - 1977
Russell Hornsby
Born 1974
Kenneth Tobey
1917 - 2002
Christa Campbell
Born 1972
Daveed Diggs
Born 1982
Cynthia Stevenson
Born 1962
Peter Hansen (actor)
1921 - 2017
Max Baer Jr.
Born 1937
Gordon Jones (actor)
1911 - 1963
Jessica Bangkok
Born 1980
Squire Fridell
Born 1943
Jill Whelan
Born 1966
Khamani Griffin
Born 1998
Robert Woolsey
1888 - 1938
Nance O'Neil
1874 - 1965
Ethel Grey Terry
1882 - 1931
Herbert Anderson
1917 - 1994
Mark Curry (actor)
Born 1961
Dru Down
Born 1969
Megan Leigh
1964 - 1990
Mills Watson
Born 1940
Susan Seaforth Hayes
Born 1943
Lance Gross
Born 1981
Dorothy Revier
1904 - 1993
Jack Soo
1917 - 1979
Kat Foster
Born 1978
Vivien Oakland
1895 - 1958
Mai Lin
Born 1953
Lloyd Hamilton
1891 - 1935
True Boardman
1882 - 1918
Benny Luke
1942 - 2013
Alta Allen
1904 - 1998
Bernice Claire
1907 - 2003
Robert Nichols (actor)
1924 - 2013
Patricia Bosworth
1933 - 2020
Tom Rosqui
1928 - 1991
Marilyn Knowlden
Born 1926
Ron Williams
Born 1942
Fern Emmett
1896 - 1946
Caryl Lincoln
1903 - 1983
Ben Chapman (actor)
1928 - 2008
Sally Phipps
1911 - 1978
T. D. Crittenden
1878 - 1938
Alvin Sanders
Born 1952
Eugenia Clinchard
1904 - 1989
David Lim (actor)
Born 1983
Marjorie Eaton
1901 - 1986
John Larkin (actor, born 1912)
1912 - 1965
Sumner Getchell
1906 - 1990
Jess Osuna
1933 - 2011
Mai Tai Sing
1923 - 2018
Harry Mainhall
1886 - 1931
John Sheehan (actor)
1885 - 1952
Laura Oakley
1879 - 1957
Lita Chevret
1908 - 2001
Bree Walker
Born 1953
Dagmar Dahlgren
1880 - 1951
Connie Cezon
1925 - 2004
Joe Knowland
1930 - 2019
Nick Thurston
Born 1987
Julie Ow
Born 1960
Louise Erickson (actress)
1928 - 2019
Louis Bennison
1884 - 1929
Frances Teague
1905 - 1969
Alexander Roger Wolf
Born 1970
Orville Caldwell
1896 - 1967
R. Henry Grey
1891 - 1934
Rafael Storm
1889 - 1951
John Pappas
Born 1951
Vanelle
Born 1978
Kathreen Khavari
-
Gladys Kingsbury
1876 - 1958
Laraine Stephens
Born 1941
Chris Eckert
Born 1986
Darryl McCane
Born 1963
Shola Adisa-Farrar
Born 1985
Kathie Fischer
1907 - 1988