43.0497° N, 87.9501° W

MILWAUKEE

Most Famous People Born in Milwaukee, United States

Notable people
1,210
Peak decade
1950s
Median birth year
1940
Most distinctive
Baseball 5.0×

Milwaukee's bench leans hard on mid-century brains and beer-league sport: a thick Baseball and Basket cohort traces back to the Braves-then-Brewers years and Marquette's old basketball powerhouse, while an outsized Lawyer class reflects the Gilded Age German-American legal scene that eventually sent a chief justice to the Supreme Court. The quieter Film vein belongs to the studio-era screenwriters and directors who filtered up through Chicago on their way to Hollywood.

Through the Decades

One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Milwaukee during each.

Notable Births by Decade

Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 140 notable births.

What Milwaukee Is Known For

Click any row to filter the list of people below.

Politician is Milwaukee's biggest profession — 12% of all notables (148).

Milwaukee over-indexes on baseball5.0× the global rate.

  1. Politician148
  2. Football111
  3. Actor82
  4. Baseball69
  5. Lawyer69
  6. Basket62
  7. Writer31
  8. Film29
  1. Baseball695.0×
  2. Basket624.1×
  3. Lawyer693.3×
  4. Officer182.3×
  5. Film291.9×

Profession Mix Over Time

Each band shows a profession family's share of Milwaukee's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.

1850187519001925195019752000
  • Sports
  • Politics & Law
  • Film & TV
  • Science
  • Writing
  • Music
  • Other
Officer18
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Showing 18 of 1,210 notable people

0049 OFFICER

Hoyt Vandenberg

1899 - 1954

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0517 OFFICER

Earl E. Stone

1895 - 1989

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0568 OFFICER

Lance Sijan

1942 - 1968

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0611 OFFICER

Lester J. Maitland

1899 - 1990

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0689 OFFICER

Augustus F. Gearhard

1893 - 1975

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0856 OFFICER

Abraham DeSomer

1884 - 1974

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0864 OFFICER

Arno H. Luehman

1911 - 1989

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0875 OFFICER

Zoe Dunning

Born 1963

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0891 OFFICER

Frank Ellis Bamford

1865 - 1932

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0934 OFFICER

Herbert J. Ray

1893 - 1970

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0946 OFFICER

Tad J. Oelstrom

Born 1943

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1013 OFFICER

Timothy S. Sullivan

-

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1043 OFFICER

Thomas A. Benes

1951 - 2014

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1095 OFFICER

James Kelsey Cogswell

1847 - 1908

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1113 OFFICER

William Westcott (aviator)

1922 - 2016

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1119 OFFICER

James B. Currie

1925 - 2009

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1158 OFFICER

Arthur L. McCullough

1896 - 1979

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1161 OFFICER

Herbert W. Ehrgott

1904 - 1982

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