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: Basket Clear ×
Gary Payton
Born 1968
Damian Lillard
Born 1990
Paul Pierce
Born 1977
Jared Cunningham
Born 1991
Jim Pollard
1922 - 1993
Derrick Brown (basketball, born 1987)
Born 1987
DeMarcus Nelson
Born 1985
Brian Shaw
Born 1966
Will Cherry
Born 1991
Jabari Brown
Born 1992
Leon Powe
Born 1984
Don Barksdale
1923 - 1993
Antonio Davis
Born 1968
David Bell (basketball)
Born 1981
Drew Gooden
Born 1981
Jelani McCoy
Born 1977
Greg Foster (basketball)
Born 1968
Drew Barry
Born 1973
Isaiah Rider
Born 1971
Jon Barry
Born 1969
Henry Turner (basketball)
Born 1966
Cliff Robinson (basketball, born 1960)
Born 1960
Darnell Robinson
Born 1974
Kwame Vaughn
Born 1990
Cameron Oliver
Born 1996
Davion Berry
Born 1991
Albert White (diver)
1895 - 1982
Ivan Rabb
Born 1997
Ron Livingstone
1925 - 1991
Eric Fernsten
Born 1953
Ron Tomsic
Born 1933
Wendell McKines
Born 1988
Zach Andrews
Born 1985
Don Lofgran
1928 - 1976
Joe Ellis (basketball)
Born 1944
Ayinde Ubaka
Born 1985
Odis Allison
Born 1949
Alexis Gray-Lawson
Born 1987
Ron Howard (American football)
Born 1951
Dominic Artis
Born 1993
John Sharper
Born 1984
Amisha Carter
Born 1982
Austin Nichols (basket-ball, 1982)
Born 1982
Jon Ferguson
Born 1949
Dominique Coleman
Born 1984
Paul Marigney
Born 1983
Anthony Shavies
Born 1983
Damon Powell
Born 1990
Herb Schmalenberger
1925 - 2006
Garry Hill-Thomas
Born 1982
Bill Durkee
1921 - 2006
Darrell Tucker
Born 1980