# The 14 Greatest People Born in Boston

> One city, and a birth-certificate list that runs from the Revolution straight through to Marvel.

*By YPB Team · Published August 11, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-14-greatest-people-born-in-boston*

---

## Current results (0 votes)

1. **Benjamin Franklin**
   Born on Milk Street in 1706, apprenticed to his brother's print shop, and gone to Philadelphia by seventeen.
2. **John F. Kennedy**
   Born in Brookline on the city's edge, the 35th President and the youngest elected.
3. **Edgar Allan Poe**
   Born in Boston in 1809 and the inventor of the detective story.
4. **Ralph Waldo Emerson**
   Boston-born essayist whose Transcendentalism shaped American thought.
5. **Samuel Adams**
   Boston-born organiser of the resistance that became the Revolution.
6. **Matt Damon**
   Cambridge-raised actor who wrote Good Will Hunting about his own city.
7. **Leonard Nimoy**
   West End boy who became Spock and directed some of the best Star Trek films.
8. **Donna Summer**
   Dorchester-born singer who defined disco and won five Grammys.
9. **Chris Evans**
   Sudbury-raised actor who played Captain America for a decade.
10. **Bobby Orr**
   Not born there, but the Bruins defenceman who redefined the position and won two Cups in Boston.
11. **New Kids on the Block**
   Dorchester boy band that sold 80 million records and invented the modern boy band template.
12. **Ben Affleck**
   Cambridge-raised actor and director, and the other half of Good Will Hunting.
13. **John Singleton Copley**
   Boston-born painter who portrayed the revolutionary generation before leaving for London.
14. **Conan O'Brien**
   Brookline-born writer for The Simpsons who then hosted late night for nearly thirty years.

Tags: usa, celebrities, boston