39.9292° N, 75.2300° W
PHILADELPHIA
Most Famous People Born in Philadelphia, USA
- Notable people
- 5,575
- Peak decade
- 1940s
- Median birth year
- 1928
- Most distinctive
- Baseball 6.0×
The original American capital, then the capital of nothing in particular, then a sports town. Philadelphia's notables run thick through the 18th century — lawyers, philanthropists, financiers — and then settle into a long, steady output of baseball players, basketball players, jazz bandleaders, and character actors. The city has one of the highest shares of notables in organized labor of the early 20th century and one of the deepest benches of soul singers of the late 20th.
Standouts
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1940s with 556 notable births.
What Philadelphia Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Politician is Philadelphia's biggest profession — 9% of all notables (482).
Philadelphia over-indexes on baseball — 6.0× the global rate.
Philadelphia under-produces football — only 0.4× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Philadelphia's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Politics & Law
- Film & TV
- Music
- Writing
- Art & Design
- Other
- Filtered to 1780s Clear ×
Hugh Glass
1783 - 1833
Richard Rush
1780 - 1859
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
1787 - 1851
Thomas Say
1787 - 1834
Nicholas Biddle (banker)
1786 - 1844
Mordecai Manuel Noah
1785 - 1851
George Ord
1781 - 1866
Rubens Peale
1784 - 1865
Robert Hare (chemist)
1781 - 1858
Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance
1785 - 1854
Joseph Reed Ingersoll
1786 - 1868
Charles Jared Ingersoll
1782 - 1862
William P. C. Barton
1786 - 1856
James Nelson Barker
1784 - 1858
Horace Binney
1780 - 1875
Robert Maskell Patterson
1787 - 1854
Magnus Miller Murray
1787 - 1838
George Gray Leiper
1786 - 1868
Stephen Simpson (writer)
1789 - 1854
Henry Horn
1786 - 1862
Thomas Lee (New Jersey)
1780 - 1856
Richard Bache Jr.
1784 - 1848
Thomas Irwin
1785 - 1870
Samuel Wells Morris
1786 - 1847
Michael Woolston Ash
1789 - 1858
Condy Raguet
1784 - 1842
Eliza Leslie
1787 - 1858
James Cutbush
1788 - 1823
Thomas Sergeant
1782 - 1860
Roberts Vaux
1786 - 1836
John Syng Dorsey
1783 - 1818
John Hare Powel
1786 - 1856
James W. McCulloh
1789 - 1861