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 1810s Clear ×
John C. Pemberton
1814 - 1881
L. L. Langstroth
1810 - 1895
Fernando Wood
1812 - 1881
Andrew A. Humphreys
1810 - 1883
Herman Haupt
1817 - 1905
Thomas Dunn English
1819 - 1902
William D. Kelley
1814 - 1890
William Henry Fry
1813 - 1864
William Parker Foulke
1816 - 1865
James Campbell (postmaster general)
1812 - 1893
Charles Deas
1818 - 1867
Samuel Austin Allibone
1816 - 1889
James Frederick Wood
1813 - 1883
Joseph Barnes
1817 - 1883
Edwin De Haven
1816 - 1865
George Rex Graham
1813 - 1894
Charles John Biddle
1819 - 1873
Peter Lesley
1819 - 1903
Edward Joy Morris
1815 - 1881
Richard Vaux
1816 - 1895
George A. Bicknell
1815 - 1891
Henry Morris Naglee
1815 - 1886
Charles G. Dahlgren
1811 - 1888
William Milnor Roberts
1810 - 1881
Gabriel Harrison
1818 - 1902
Anne Hampton Brewster
1818 - 1892
John F. Starr
1818 - 1904
Thomas Birch Florence
1812 - 1875
Alfred Stillé
1813 - 1900
Henry Myer Phillips
1811 - 1884
Edwin Pearce Christy
1815 - 1862
John Wood (congressman)
1816 - 1898
James Landy
1813 - 1875
Joseph Parrish Thompson
1819 - 1879
John Guier Scott
1819 - 1892
John McClintock (theologian)
1814 - 1870
Robert T. Conrad
1810 - 1858
Richard Howell Gleaves
1819 - 1907
Charles Guillou
1813 - 1899
James Lloyd Breck
1818 - 1876
Sharon Tyndale
1816 - 1871
Thomas Marshal Bibighaus
1817 - 1853
John Trautwine
1810 - 1883
Henry Wikoff
1813 - 1884
Harriet Forten Purvis
1810 - 1875
William Warren (actor)
1812 - 1888
John Carlin
1813 - 1891
William Henry Odenheimer
1817 - 1879
Alexander Starne
1813 - 1886
John How
1813 - 1885
Richard Griffith (general)
1814 - 1862
James Clark (college president)
1812 - 1874
Hannah Mary Bouvier Peterson
1811 - 1870
John C. Bowers
1811 - 1873
William Henry Gilder (clergyman)
1812 - 1864
William Axton Stokes
1814 - 1877
Charles Jacobs Peterson
1818 - 1887
John Cummings Howell
1819 - 1892
Ann Sophia Towne Darrah
1819 - 1881
George A.H. Blake
1810 - 1884
Jane Hunt
1812 - 1889
Alfred Ryors
1812 - 1858
Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby
1812 - 1873
James L. English
1813 - 1889
Thomas R. Potts
1810 - 1874
Alfred D. Jones
1814 - 1902
Thomas E. Franklin (lawyer)
1810 - 1884
Jacob R. Snyder
1812 - 1878
Samuel G. King
1816 - 1899
Zedekiah Johnson Purnell
Born 1813
Jonathan Falconbridge Kelly
Born 1817
Thomas W. Sutherland
1817 - 1859
Thomas A. Starkey
1819 - 1903