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
Politician50
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Showing 50 of 1,016 notable people

0013 POLITICIAN

Kamala Harris

Born 1964

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0029 POLITICIAN

Jon Kyl

Born 1942

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0051 POLITICIAN

Ron Dellums

1935 - 2018

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0186 POLITICIAN

Frank M. Dixon

1892 - 1965

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0211 POLITICIAN

Val Peterson

1903 - 1983

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0212 POLITICIAN

David M. McIntosh

Born 1958

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0311 POLITICIAN

Libby Schaaf

Born 1965

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0312 POLITICIAN

Jack Z. Anderson

1904 - 1981

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0374 POLITICIAN

Carina Vance Mafla

Born 1977

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0381 POLITICIAN

John J. Allen Jr.

1899 - 1995

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0390 POLITICIAN

John F. Baldwin Jr.

1915 - 1966

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0407 POLITICIAN

Brian Moore (political activist)

Born 1943

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0415 POLITICIAN

Wally George

1931 - 2003

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0436 POLITICIAN

Daniel Wells Jr.

1808 - 1902

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0454 POLITICIAN

Sharon Percy Rockefeller

Born 1944

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0470 POLITICIAN

Heather Fargo

Born 1952

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0478 POLITICIAN

Mike Eng

Born 1946

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0522 POLITICIAN

Denise Juneau

Born 1967

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0574 POLITICIAN

Maxine Moul

Born 1947

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0587 POLITICIAN

Vincent Orange

Born 1957

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0605 POLITICIAN

Tom Johnson (Illinois politician)

1945 - 2018

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0654 POLITICIAN

Wendell R. Beitzel

Born 1943

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0658 POLITICIAN

Antonio Parkinson

-

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0661 POLITICIAN

George Miller Jr.

1914 - 1969

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0671 POLITICIAN

Ellen Corbett

Born 1954

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0679 POLITICIAN

Sue Chew

-

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0689 POLITICIAN

John A. Nejedly

1914 - 2006

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0706 POLITICIAN

Randy Smith (politician)

Born 1960

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0727 POLITICIAN

Linda Berglin

Born 1944

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0730 POLITICIAN

Hubert Houser

Born 1942

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0741 POLITICIAN

Hans Riemer

1901 - 1963

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0753 POLITICIAN

Otto J. Zahn

1872 - 1965

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0768 POLITICIAN

Don Mulford

1915 - 2000

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0791 POLITICIAN

Sandré Swanson

Born 1948

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0820 POLITICIAN

Rutherford B. Irones

1877 - 1948

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0868 POLITICIAN

Curt Bromm

Born 1945

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0871 POLITICIAN

Matt Connealy

Born 1951

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0916 POLITICIAN

Stewart Iverson

Born 1950

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0922 POLITICIAN

Michael Sweeney (politician)

-

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0965 POLITICIAN

W. W. Conner

1882 - 1938

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0972 POLITICIAN

Ervin Dennis

Born 1936

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0973 POLITICIAN

Catherine Emmanuelle

Born 1980

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0987 POLITICIAN

Richard M. Romero

Born 1944

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0990 POLITICIAN

Andrew Nisbet Jr.

1921 - 2013

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1002 POLITICIAN

Carol Boyd Hallett

Born 1937

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1008 POLITICIAN

Louis Francis

-

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1010 POLITICIAN

John A. O'Connell

-

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1014 POLITICIAN

Charles W. Fisher (American politician)

-

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1015 POLITICIAN

Richard M. Lyman

-

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1016 POLITICIAN

John R. Jones (Washington politician)

1876 - 1972

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