43.6704° N, 79.3868° W
TORONTO
Most Famous People Born in Toronto, Canada
- Notable people
- 4,438
- Peak decade
- 1950s
- Median birth year
- 1956
- Most distinctive
- Hockey 12.0×
A hockey town with a film industry on the side. Hockey alone accounts for one in seven of Toronto's notable births, and the distinctive-profession list reads like a Canadian winter — ice hockey players at twelve times the global rate, figure skaters, rowers, and novelists close behind. Almost nothing here predates Confederation; the city's notables fan out from the late 19th century into a steady bench of actors, musicians, and filmmakers.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Toronto during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 570 notable births.
What Toronto Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Hockey is Toronto's biggest profession — 14% of all notables (633).
Toronto over-indexes on hockey — 12.0× the global rate.
Toronto under-produces football — only 0.6× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Toronto's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Film & TV
- Politics & Law
- Music
- Writing
- Science
- Other
- Filtered to 1890s Clear ×
Mary Pickford
1892 - 1979
Lester B. Pearson
1897 - 1972
Raymond Massey
1896 - 1983
Jack Pickford
1896 - 1933
Beatrice Lillie
1894 - 1989
Grace Darmond
1898 - 1963
Elmer Clifton
1890 - 1949
Lottie Pickford
1893 - 1936
George Hainsworth
1895 - 1950
Conn Smythe
1895 - 1980
A. J. Casson
1898 - 1992
Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet
1894 - 1976
James Rennie (actor)
1890 - 1965
Harry Hemley Plaskett
1893 - 1980
Stanley Thompson
1893 - 1953
Fred Gardiner
1895 - 1983
W. Garfield Weston
1898 - 1978
Jake Forbes
1897 - 1985
Margaret Bannerman
1896 - 1976
Ernie Collett (ice hockey)
1895 - 1951
Alf Skinner
1896 - 1961
Geoffrey Taylor (rower)
1890 - 1915
Colin Carruthers
1890 - 1957
Arlene Harris
1896 - 1976
Arthur "Slim" Evans
1890 - 1944
John Robert Cartwright
1895 - 1979
Frank Sullivan (ice hockey, born 1898)
1898 - 1989
Eric Carruthers
1895 - 1931
Scott Darling (screenwriter)
1898 - 1951
Geoffrey Holmes
1894 - 1964
Guy Clarkson
1891 - 1974
Humphrey Hume Wrong
1894 - 1953
Clarence Newton
1899 - 1979
Arthur Bell (rower)
1899 - 1963
Beverley Baxter
1891 - 1964
Greg Clark (journalist)
1892 - 1977
Yvonne McKague Housser
1898 - 1996
Percy Galbraith
1898 - 1961
Helen M. Roberts
1896 - 1983
Lawrence Moore Cosgrave
1890 - 1971
Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside
1898 - 1992
Kenneth Forbes
1892 - 1980
Frank C. Moore
1896 - 1978
Paul A. W. Wallace
1891 - 1967
Doris Huestis Speirs
1894 - 1989
Norman Taylor
1899 - 1980
William Melville Alexander
1897 - 1988
Athol Murray
1892 - 1975
Robert Balgarnie Young Scott
1899 - 1987
Rod Smylie
1895 - 1985
Frederick C. Armstrong
1896 - 1918
Martin Michael Johnson
1899 - 1975
J. Erroll Boyd
1891 - 1960
Harold G. Fox
1896 - 1970
Harry L. Symons
1893 - 1962
William Ross Macdonald
1891 - 1976
Carleton Main Clement
1896 - 1917
Ada Mackenzie
1890 - 1973
Kenneth William Junor
1896 - 1918
Alfred Atkey
1894 - 1971
Harold Bounsall
1897 - 1978
Paul Hartley Raney
1892 - 1917
Stanley Maxted
1897 - 1963
Gordon Budd Irving
1898 - 1918
Reginald Hoidge
1894 - 1963
Ralph Day
1898 - 1976
William Ernest Shields
1892 - 1921
Alexandrine Gibb
1891 - 1958
Joe Breen
1897 - 1978
Ellsworth Flavelle
1892 - 1977
Allen Shenstone
1893 - 1980
Henry John Burden
1894 - 1960
Frieda Fraser
1899 - 1994
William Leeming Harrison
1899 - 1960
Arthur Bradfield Fairclough
1896 - 1968
Arthur Whealy
1895 - 1945
Garnett Weston
1890 - 1980
William Pate Mulock
1897 - 1954
Frankie Fleming
1893 - 1960
Edith Williams
1899 - 1979
Charles D. B. Green
1897 - 1941
John Russell Love
1895 - 1981
Richard Hearn
1890 - 1987
John H. Boyd (photographer)
1898 - 1971
Thomas Russell Wilkins
1891 - 1940
Emerson Smith
Born 1896
Wilfrid Heighington
1897 - 1945
Harry Wood (aviator)
1894 - 1959
Judith Robinson
1897 - 1961
Harold Molyneux
1896 - 1985
Clive Carruthers
1891 - 1980
Melville Waddington
1895 - 1945
Ilean Hume
1896 - 1978
Bobby Hewitson
1892 - 1969
Arnold Jacques Chadwick
1893 - 1917
Gordon Millen
1899 - 1948
Strathy Hay
1897 - 1973
Frank Archibald MacDougall
1896 - 1975
Spurgeon Tucker
1894 - 1968
Arthur Scholes
Born 1890
Austin Lloyd Fleming
1894 - 1969
Art Everett
1891 - 1983
Ernest Dalton
Born 1896
Harold Harcourt
1896 - 1970
Robert Hay (rower)
1897 - 1968
Lewis Duncan
1892 - 1960
Jean Hall
1896 - 1982
Frank Harold Taylor
1896 - 1985
James Y. Murdoch
1890 - 1962
Edward LeRoy Bowerman
1892 - 1977
Harry Watts (jockey)
1894 - 1940
Frederick Hoblitzell
1891 - 1964
Francis Patrick Carroll (Bischof, 1890)
1890 - 1967
Albert Victor Waters
1896 - 1953
Ossie Lang
1893 - 1981