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.
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 baseball — 5.0× the global rate.
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.
- Sports
- Politics & Law
- Film & TV
- Science
- Writing
- Music
- Other
- Field: Politician Clear ×
Jim Risch
Born 1943
Herb Kohl
Born 1935
Pete Stark
1931 - 2020
Glenn Grothman
Born 1955
Bob Kasten
Born 1942
John G. Schmitz
1930 - 2001
Lee S. Dreyfus
1926 - 2008
Bart Stupak
Born 1952
Wilbur J. Cohen
1913 - 1987
Clement J. Zablocki
1912 - 1983
Gary Lauck
Born 1953
Tom Barrett (Wisconsin politician)
Born 1953
Matthias Koehl
1935 - 2014
Jerry Kleczka
1943 - 2017
John L. Mitchell
1842 - 1904
Rebecca Kleefisch
Born 1975
Henry S. Reuss
1912 - 2002
Scott L. Klug
Born 1953
Frank Zeidler
1912 - 2006
Randy Bryce
Born 1964
Louise Goff Reece
1898 - 1970
Martin J. Schreiber
Born 1939
Mira Ricardel
Born 1960
Peter G. Torkildsen
Born 1958
Fred R. Zimmerman
1880 - 1954
Mark Leno
Born 1951
Steve Sisolak
Born 1953
John C. Schafer
1893 - 1962
Thaddeus Wasielewski
1904 - 1976
Ned R. Healy
1905 - 1977
William H. Stafford
1869 - 1957
Thomas O'Malley (congressman)
1903 - 1979
Lewis D. Thill
1903 - 1975
Lena Taylor
Born 1966
Mahlon Mitchell
Born 1977
William J. Cary
1865 - 1934
Mandela Barnes
Born 1986
Chris Larson
Born 1980
Everett Colby
1874 - 1940
Joe Sanfelippo
Born 1964
Kathleen Falk
Born 1951
Sandy Pasch
Born 1954
Jim Steineke
Born 1970
David Bowen (Wisconsin)
-
Christine Sinicki
Born 1960
Tim Carpenter
Born 1960
Josh Zepnick
Born 1968
James McClinton
Born 1961
Meta Berger
1873 - 1944
Gerhard Adolph Bading
1870 - 1946
Spencer Coggs
Born 1949
Gary George (Wisconsin politician)
Born 1954
JoCasta Zamarripa
Born 1976
Jason Fields
Born 1974
Don Pridemore
Born 1946
Daniel Riemer
Born 1986
Jonathan Brostoff
Born 1983
Michael Huebsch
Born 1964
Dave Schulz (politician)
1949 - 2007
Stephen Nass
Born 1952
Paul Farrow
Born 1964
Mark Brody
Born 1951
Jim Ott
Born 1947
Sheldon Wasserman
Born 1961
Roger Stewart
Born 1931
John C. Pritzlaff Jr.
1925 - 2005
Jay Kerttula
1928 - 2020
Joan Ballweg
Born 1952
Dan Knodl
Born 1958
John Sharpless
Born 1945
Leo Krzycki
1881 - 1966
Dismas Becker
1936 - 2010
Mike Kuglitsch
Born 1960
Tony Zielinski
Born 1961
George Hambrecht
1871 - 1943
Thomas G. Reynolds
Born 1956
Ken Skowronski
-
Peggy Krusick
Born 1956
James B. Brennan
Born 1926
Steve Conliff
1949 - 2006
Carl Zeidler
1908 - 1942
Barbara Toles
Born 1956
Brian Burke (Wisconsin politician)
Born 1958
Richard Grobschmidt
1948 - 2016
George Hampel (legislator)
1885 - 1954
Amir Omar
-
David Crowley (Wisconsin politician)
Born 1986
Donald K. Stitt
1944 - 2014
Barbara Ulichny
Born 1947
Peter Bock
Born 1948
Frank Farkas
Born 1956
John La Fave
Born 1949
Roman R. Blenski
1917 - 2002
Eugene Hahn
Born 1929
Thomas H. Brown
1839 - 1908
Tom Ament
1937 - 2014
John Plewa
1945 - 1995
Carolyn H. Krause
Born 1938
David Berger (Wisconsin politician)
Born 1946
Kevin Soucie
Born 1954
Edmund V. Bobrowicz
1919 - 2003
John L. Merkt
1946 - 2009
Michael G. Kirby
Born 1952
Jeannette Bell
Born 1941
Gus Menos
1920 - 1990
Oscar F. Thieme
1869 - 1926
Otto Junkermann
1929 - 2016
Eric E. Hagedorn
1896 - 1963
J. H. Frappier
Born 1931
James A. Rutkowski
Born 1942
Joseph Czarnezki
Born 1954
Charles Coleman (politician)
-
Shirley Krug
Born 1958
Robert E. Behnke
1932 - 1999
Douglas C. Steltz
1920 - 2009
Frank J. Weber
1849 - 1943
John H. Niebler
Born 1941
Phillip James Tuczynski
Born 1947
Thomas W. Meaux
Born 1954
William F. Double
1910 - 1996
E. James Ladwig
Born 1938
Lois Plous
Born 1938
Raymond J. Tobiasz
1916 - 1976
George G. Brew
Born 1868
Thomas Seery
Born 1945
Joseph Przybylski
Born 1897
Ruth Bachhuber Doyle
1916 - 2006
Chuck Wichgers
Born 1965
Otto Harrass
1869 - 1910
James L. Callan
1910 - 1991
Johnnie E. Morris
Born 1951
Erik Poulsen
Born 1964
John C. Doerfer
1904 - 1992
Edward H. Kiefer
1874 - 1951
George Czerwinski
Born 1890
Irving P. Mehigan
1898 - 1980
Earl Keegan Jr.
1921 - 1977
Lynn Schindler
1944 - 2018
David Groos
1918 - 1976
Walter Kunicki
Born 1958
Bonnie Ladwig
Born 1939
Jeffrey O. Hanson
1958 - 2006
Sandy MacKay
1881 - 1952
Arthur Callow
1869 - 1955
William Luebke
1906 - 1960
James W. Wahner
Born 1939
Edward F. Mertz
Born 1890
Paul Jaeger
Born 1891