Although Arlington's population makes up just 5 percent of Virginia's population, a new ranking shows that 60 percent of the top five living notable people from the Old Dominion have roots in the county.
That includes the person who occupies the no.
Famouspeople.io commissioned a survey rating over 3,000 people from entertainment, politics and sports to determine the most famous person in each state.
The top star from Virginia was then-Washington/Lee High School graduate and actress/producer Sandra Bullock.
Actress Shirley MacLaine, a graduate of Washington and Lee University, ranked fifth among Virginia natives (her brother Warren Beatty is similarly famous but did not make the top five).
Yorktown High School graduate and journalist Katie Couric came in third in the survey, between actor Rob Lowe (born in Charlottesville) and musician Chris Brown (born in Tappahannock).
The rankings are based on a representative survey of the U.S. population conducted in Q2 2023. Subjects were presented with a series of famous people and asked to indicate whether they knew them.
(You can read the full report here: https://www.famouspeople.io/report/most-famous-person-by-state.)
Across the country, some states were easily identified with celebrities, such as Bill Clinton and Arkansas, or Donny Osmond and Utah.
If you didn't know where the celebrities were from, it might have been harder to guess the other states.
Alabama? According to a survey, the most famous living person from that state is Lionel Richie. Missouri? Dick Van Dyke. New Jersey? Jack Nicholson.
Nancy Pelosi may be best known for her San Francisco roots, but she hails from Maryland and ranks as the state's most famous person. Topping the list from the District of Columbia was Samuel L. Jackson.
