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 1830s Clear ×
Henry George
1839 - 1897
Ignatius L. Donnelly
1831 - 1901
John Wanamaker
1838 - 1922
Charles Yerkes
1837 - 1905
Frank R. Stockton
1834 - 1902
William Stanley Haseltine
1835 - 1900
William Trost Richards
1833 - 1905
Frank Furness
1839 - 1912
William Williams Keen
1837 - 1932
Roswell P. Flower
1835 - 1899
Leon Abbett
1836 - 1894
John R. Brooke
1838 - 1926
Charlotte Forten Grimké
1837 - 1914
Elijah E. Myers
1832 - 1909
John C. Caldwell
1833 - 1912
Charles F. Manderson
1837 - 1911
George Washington Tryon
1838 - 1888
Lewis Redner
1831 - 1908
Anna Alcott Pratt
1831 - 1893
Horace Howard Furness
1833 - 1912
John Howard Van Amringe
1835 - 1915
Herman Strecker
1836 - 1901
Fairman Rogers
1833 - 1900
Lewis Wolfley
1839 - 1910
Henry Martyn Baird
1832 - 1906
Edmund Darch Lewis
1835 - 1910
Franklin B. Gowen
1836 - 1889
John C. Smith (politician)
1832 - 1910
Charles H. Mansur
1835 - 1895
Alan Wood Jr.
1834 - 1902
John Trout Greble
1834 - 1861
Adam Forepaugh
1831 - 1890
Joseph William Drexel
1833 - 1888
John Brewer Brown
1836 - 1898
Eleanor C. Donnelly
1838 - 1917
Cornelia Adair
1837 - 1921
Xanthus Russell Smith
1839 - 1929
Chapman Freeman
1832 - 1904
William Ward (Pennsylvania)
1837 - 1895
John V. Creely
1839 - 1900
Lewis Packard
1836 - 1884
Norwood Penrose Hallowell
1839 - 1914
Joseph George Rosengarten
1835 - 1921
Owen Thomas Edgar
1831 - 1929
Charles R. Jennison
1834 - 1884
George Hugh Smith
1834 - 1915
Edward Needles Hallowell
1836 - 1871
Joseph Janvier Woodward
1833 - 1884
William Meredith (Schachkomponist)
1835 - 1903
Alfred Shea Addis
1832 - 1886
Eckley Brinton Coxe
1839 - 1895
J. Meredith Read
1837 - 1896
Rose Eytinge
1835 - 1911
William Henry Gilder
1838 - 1900
George Frederick Bensell
1837 - 1879
Robert Curtis Ogden
1836 - 1913
Alexander C. McClurg
1832 - 1901
Simon Sterne
1839 - 1901
Persis Foster Eames Albee
1836 - 1914
Alfred H. Love
1830 - 1913
Kidder Breese
1831 - 1881
William McCandless
1834 - 1884
John H. Brinton
1832 - 1907
Thomas Harrison Montgomery
1830 - 1905
Henry Phipps Jr.
1839 - 1930
Robert Burns Beath
1839 - 1914
Susan E. Dickinson
1832 - 1915
Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach
1831 - 1890
Peter Dirck Keyser
1835 - 1897
Leighton Coleman
1837 - 1907
Henrietta Baker Chanfrau
1837 - 1909
Celia Logan
1837 - 1904
Noah K. Davis
1830 - 1910
Lucy Hamilton Hooper
1835 - 1893
Bushrod Washington James
1836 - 1903
Jeannette Walworth
1835 - 1918
William Marriott Canby
1831 - 1904
George Emerick Essig
1838 - 1923
Richard Binder
1839 - 1912
Jacob Ford Kent
1835 - 1918
Edmund Haffee
Born 1832
Harry Hawk
1837 - 1916
Susan Denin
1835 - 1875
James Hood Wright
1836 - 1894
Anthony Taylor (Medal of Honor)
1837 - 1894
Richard Hamilton (Medal of Honor)
1836 - 1881
Jimmy Hope
1836 - 1905
Forrester L. Taylor
1833 - 1907
Joseph E. Vantine
1835 - 1904
Andrew Boyd Cummings
1830 - 1863
James A. Stewart (Medal of Honor)
Born 1839
John Lawson (Medal of Honor)
1837 - 1919
Robert A. Gray
1834 - 1906
H. Boyd McKeen
1835 - 1864
Harry C. Egbert
1839 - 1899
J. Hinckley Clark
1835 - 1889
Charles E. Warburton
1837 - 1896
Charles Sutherland (Surgeon General)
1831 - 1895
Robert T. Clifford
1835 - 1873
John Brazell
1837 - 1866
William R. Fox
1837 - 1888
Charles Henry Alden
1836 - 1906
William Wainwright (land developer)
1836 - 1904
John Johnson (Medal of Honor, 1839)
Born 1839
William Jones (sailor)
Born 1831
William E. Goodman
1838 - 1912
Kate Duval Hughes
Born 1837
Charles Schäffer
1838 - 1903