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
Lawyer32
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Showing 32 of 1,016 notable people

0054 LAWYER

Edwin Meese

Born 1931

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0284 LAWYER

Aaron Sapiro

1884 - 1959

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0298 LAWYER

Saundra Brown Armstrong

Born 1947

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0336 LAWYER

Bill Lockyer

Born 1941

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0363 LAWYER

Howard Lincoln

Born 1940

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0398 LAWYER

Jay Bybee

Born 1953

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0413 LAWYER

Clyde Doyle

1887 - 1963

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0448 LAWYER

Edward M. Chen

Born 1953

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0494 LAWYER

John Lansdale Jr.

1912 - 2003

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0518 LAWYER

Charles Stetson Wheeler

1863 - 1923

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0538 LAWYER

Richard C. Tallman

Born 1953

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0563 LAWYER

Dorothy McCullough Lee

1901 - 1981

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0645 LAWYER

David M. Louie

Born 1951

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0660 LAWYER

Justin P. Wilson

Born 1945

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0668 LAWYER

Joseph Grodin

Born 1930

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0675 LAWYER

Lawrence Joseph O'Neill

Born 1952

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0693 LAWYER

William B. Shubb

Born 1938

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0707 LAWYER

John P. Vukasin Jr.

1928 - 1993

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0709 LAWYER

John Mendez

Born 1955

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0752 LAWYER

David Roger

Born 1961

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0754 LAWYER

Haben Girma

Born 1988

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0787 LAWYER

Milton Lewis Schwartz

1920 - 2005

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0809 LAWYER

James Keith Singleton Jr.

Born 1939

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0848 LAWYER

Edward C. DuMont

Born 1962

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0850 LAWYER

Wiley Manuel

1927 - 1981

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0891 LAWYER

Emory Buckner

1888 - 1941

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0908 LAWYER

Alfred Delucchi

Died 2008

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0952 LAWYER

Richard Jencks

1921 - 2014

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0955 LAWYER

Lloyd Hudson Burke

1916 - 1988

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0959 LAWYER

Walter Early Craig

1909 - 1986

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0979 LAWYER

Lucas A. Powe Jr.

Born 1943

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0992 LAWYER

Oliver Deveta Hamlin Jr.

1892 - 1973

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