This is a list of notable people who were either born in San Juan, Puerto Rico or who were not born in San Juan, but who are or were longtime residents of the city. San Juan has been the birthplace and the place of residence of many Puerto Ricans and people who are not of Puerto Rican heritage who became notable artists, military personnel, politicians, scientists and sportsmen; locally referred to as "Sanjuaneros". The following lists some of them and details their occupation:
| Name | Profession |
|---|---|
| Héctor Luis Acevedo | Former Mayor of San Juan and Secretary of State of Puerto Rico |
| Aníbal Acevedo Vilá | Former Governor and Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico |
| José Miguel Agrelot | Actor and comedian, known as "Don Cholito" |
| Ricardo E. Alegría | Anthropologist and archaeologist, known as the "father of modern Puerto Rican archaeology" |
| Manuel A. Alonso | Writer and poet |
| Juan de Amezquita | Member of the Puerto Rican militia who defended Puerto Rico from an invasion by Dutch Captain Balduino Enrico (Boudewijn Hendricksz) in 1625 |
| Ricardo Aponte | United States Air Force General; the first Hispanic Director, J-7, of the United States Southern Command, located in Miami, Florida |
| Félix Arenas Gaspar | Puerto Rican Captain in the Spanish Army who was posthumously awarded the Cruz Laureada de San Fernando, the highest military decoration awarded by the Spanish government, for his actions in the Rif War |
| Juan Alejo de Arizmendi | First Puerto Rican to be named Bishop by the Catholic Church |
| Raymond Ayala | Reggaeton singer |
| Carlos Obed Baerga Ortiz | Major League Baseball player |
| Eddie Benitez | Musician |
| Tomás Blanco | Writer and historian |
| Kristina Brandi | Professional tennis player |
| Giannina Braschi | Poet, novelist, dramatist |
| Sila María Calderón | Former governor of Puerto Rico, Secretary of State and mayor of San Juan; the first female governor of Puerto Rico |
| José Campeche | Puerto Rican visual artist |
| Deborah Carthy-Deu | Miss Universe 1985 |
| Nitza Margarita Cintron | Chief of Space Medicine and Health Care Systems for NASA |
| Celestina Cordero | Educator, in 1820 founded the first school for girls in San Juan |
| Rafael Cordero | Educator, known as "the father of public education in Puerto Rico" |
| Christian Daniel | Singer-songwriter and actor |
| Pedro del Valle | First Hispanic General in the Marine Corps; played an instrumental role in the capture of Okinawa in World War II |
| Stephanie Del Valle | Model, Miss World 2016 |
| Alberto Díaz, Jr. | Rear Admiral, first Hispanic Director of the San Diego Naval District and Balboa Naval Hospital |
| Guillermo Diaz | Professional basketball player |
| Justino Díaz | Operatic bass-baritone singer; in 1963, was the first Puerto Rican to win an annual contest held at the Metropolitan Opera of New York |
| Carmen Lozano Dumler | One of the first Puerto Rican women to become a United States Army officer |
| Nicholas Estavillo | First Puerto Rican and the first Hispanic in the history of the NYPD to reach the three-star rank of Chief of Patrol [1] |
| Cano Estremera | Salsa singer |
| Salvador E. Felices | First Puerto Rican to reach the rank of Major General (2-star) in the United States Air Force |
| Gigi Fernández | Professional tennis player; first Puerto Rican woman to win an Olympic gold medal (representing the U.S.) and the first to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame |
| Enrique Figueroa | Olympic sailor; the only sailor of Puerto Rico to win four gold medals in the Central American-Caribbean Games |
| Manuel Goded Llopis | High-ranking Puerto Rican in the Spanish Army; joined Spanish General Francisco Franco in the revolt against the Spanish Republican government (also known as Spanish loyalists) in the Spanish Civil War |
| Wilfredo Gómez | Former boxer and three-time world champion |
| Isabel González | Activist who paved the way for Puerto Ricans to be given United States citizenship |
| Diego E. Hernández | First Hispanic to be named Vice Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) |
| Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay | Actor |
| Javier López | Major League Baseball pitcher |
| Javy López | Former Major League Baseball catcher |
| Olin Pierre Louis | Haitian priest at the Iglesia San Mateo de Cangrejos |
| Mike Lowell | Major League Baseball player |
| Ricky Martin | Singer and actor |
| Tony Martinez | Actor, singer, and bandleader |
| Kenneth McClintock | 13th President of the Senate of Puerto Rico; 22nd Secretary of State; former senator and City Councilman |
| María de las Mercedes Barbudo (1773–1849) | First "Independentista", the first Puerto Rican woman to become an advocate of Puerto Rican independence |
| Andy Montañez | Salsa singer |
| Luis Muñoz Marín | First Puerto Rican elected governor |
| Ossie Ocasio | Boxer and former world Cruiserweight champion |
| Luis Padial | Brigadier General in the Spanish Army; politician; important figure in the abolishment of slavery in Puerto Rico |
| Dr. Hernán Padilla | Physician; former Mayor of San Juan; Puerto Rico House Majority Leader |
| José Enrique Pedreira | Musician and composer |
| Joaquin Phoenix | Actor who earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Gladiator and received wider recognition for his portrayal of musician Johnny Cash in Walk the Line |
| Carlos Ponce | Major League Baseball player |
| José M. Portela | Retired officer of the United States Air Force; in 1972 became the youngest C-141 Starlifter aircraft commander |
| Jorge Posada | New York Yankees catcher |
| Ramón Power y Giralt | Among the first native-born Puerto Ricans to refer to himself as a "Puerto Rican" and to fight for the equal representation of Puerto Rico in front of the parliamentary government of Spain |
| Samuel R. Quiñones | Lawyer and 5th President of the Puerto Rican Senate |
| Carlos D. Ramirez (1946–1999) | Publisher of El Diario La Prensa [2] |
| Marion Frederic Ramírez de Arellano | Captain; first Hispanic submarine commanding officer in the United States Navy |
| Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano | Praetor, Roman demigod, character in the book series The Heroes of Olympus |
| Felisa Rincón de Gautier | Former Mayor of San Juan; Democratic National Committeewoman; first woman to be elected mayor of a capital city in the Americas |
| Augusto Rodríguez | Lieutenant in the United States Union Army; member of the 15th Connecticut Regiment (aka Lyon Regiment); during the American Civil War he served in the defenses of Washington, D.C.; led his men in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Wyse Fork [3] |
| Augusto Rodríguez | Founder of Choir of the University of Puerto Rico |
| Carlos Romero Barceló | Former governor of Puerto Rico, Resident Commissioner, senator and mayor of San Juan |
| Johanna Rosaly | Actress and television host |
| Dr. Pedro Rosselló | Former governor, senator and San Juan Municipal Health Director |
| Francisco Rovira Rullán | Art dealer |
| Roberto Sánchez Vilella | Former governor, first Secretary of State, Secretary of Public Works and San Juan City Administrator |
| Jorge Santini | Former Mayor of San Juan and senator |
| Daniel Santos | Boxer |
| Antulio Segarra | Officer in the United States Army; in 1943 became the first Puerto Rican to command a Regular Army Regiment |
| Geovany Soto | Current Chicago Cubs catcher, 2008 National League Rookie of the Year |
| Cristina Takacs-Vesbach | Antarctic researcher, microbial ecologist |
| Fermín Tangüis | Developed the seed that would eventually produce the Tanguis cotton in Peru, which saved that nation's cotton industry |
| Dayanara Torres | 1993 Miss Universe pageant winner |
| José Trías Monge | Former Chief Justice, Attorney General of Puerto Rico and member of Puerto Rico's Constitutional Convention |
| Pedro Vázquez | Former Puerto Rico Secretary of State |
| Samuel E Vázquez | Visual artist |
Due to space limitations it is almost impossible to list all of the people of San Juan who have distinguished themselves; therefore, a category has been created to this effect:
Pedro Albizu Campos was a Puerto Rican attorney and politician, and a leading figure in the Puerto Rican independence movement. He was the president and spokesperson of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico from 1930 until his death. He led the nationalist revolts of October 1950 against the United States government in Puerto Rico. Albizu Campos spent a total of twenty-six years in prison at various times for his Puerto Rican independence activities.
The Puerto Rican Socialist Party was a Marxist and pro-independence political party in Puerto Rico seeking the end of United States of America control on the Hispanic and Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. It proposed a "democratic workers' republic".
Rafael Cordero y Molina, known as Maestro Cordero, was a self-educated Afro–Puerto Rican who provided free schooling to the children of his city regardless of race or social standing. He is also known as the "Father of Public Education in Puerto Rico".
Olga Isabel Viscal Garriga was a public orator and political activist. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she moved to Puerto Rico, where she was a student leader and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party's branch in Rio Piedras. As an advocate for Puerto Rican independence, she was sentenced to eight years in a U.S. federal penitentiary, for refusing to recognize the sovereign authority of the United States over Puerto Rico.
Irish immigration to Puerto Rico began during the period of Spanish colonization of the island, continuing through 19th century to the present day. During the 16th century, many Irishmen, who were known as "Wild Geese", deserted from the English Army and joined the Spanish Army. They did so either in Europe or when they could "jump ship" off the coast of Puerto Rico, at which time they joined the Spanish colonial army, mainly in San Juan.
Puerto Rican literature is the body of literature produced by writers of Puerto Rican descent. It evolved from the art of oral storytelling. Written works by the indigenous inhabitants of Puerto Rico were originally prohibited and repressed by the Spanish colonial government.
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico resulted in the 19th century from widespread economic and political changes in Europe that made life difficult for the peasant and agricultural classes in Corsica and other territories. The Second Industrial Revolution drew more people into urban areas for work, widespread crop failure resulted from long periods of drought, and crop diseases, and political discontent rose. In the early nineteenth century, Spain lost most of its possessions in the so-called "New World" as its colonies won independence. It feared rebellion in its last two Caribbean colonies: Puerto Rico and Cuba. The Spanish Crown had issued the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 which fostered and encouraged the immigration of European Catholics, even if not of Spanish origin, to its Caribbean colonies.
Puerto Rican migration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a worldwide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Consequently, Hawaiian sugarcane plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced, laborers from Puerto Rico. In thirteen separate groups, 5883 Puerto Rican men, women and children traveled by ship, train then ship again to the islands of Hawaii to begin their new lives in the sugar plantations.
Puerto Ricans have both immigrated and migrated to New York City. The first group of Puerto Ricans immigrated to New York City in the mid-19th century when Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony and its people Spanish subjects. The following wave of Puerto Ricans to move to New York City did so after the Spanish–American War in 1898. Puerto Ricans were no longer Spanish subjects and citizens of Spain, they were now Puerto Rican citizens of an American possession and needed passports to travel to the Contiguous United States.
Stateside Puerto Ricans, also ambiguously known as Puerto Rican Americans, or Puerto Ricans in the United States, are Puerto Ricans who are in the United States proper of the 50 states and the District of Columbia who were born in or trace any family ancestry to the unincorporated US territory of Puerto Rico.
The history of Puerto Rico began with the settlement of the Ortoiroid people before 430 BC. At the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1493, the dominant indigenous culture was that of the Taíno. The Taíno people's numbers went dangerously low during the latter half of the 16th century because of new infectious diseases carried by Europeans, exploitation by Spanish settlers, and warfare.
The Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. An open Jewish community did not flourish in the colony because Judaism was prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition. However, many migrated to mountainous parts of the island, far from the central power of San Juan, and continued to self-identify as Jews and practice Crypto-Judaism.
Manuel Olivieri Sánchez was a court interpreter and civil rights activist who led the legal battle which recognized U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans living in Hawaii.
The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party insurgency was a series of coordinated insurrections for the secession of Puerto Rico led by the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Don Pedro Albizu Campos, against the United States government's rule over the islands of Puerto Rico. The party repudiated the "Free Associated State" status that had been enacted in 1950 and which the Nationalists considered a continuation of colonialism.
Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent have participated as members of the United States Armed Forces in every conflict in which the United States has been involved since World War I.
María Arrillaga is a Puerto Rican poet who has been a professor at the University of Puerto Rico. She taught in the Spanish Department on the Rio Piedras campus. She is the author of several collections of poetry.
Lieutenant Augusto Rodríguez, was a Puerto Rican who served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Rodríguez served in the defenses of Washington, D.C., and led his men in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Wyse Fork.
Raimundo Díaz Pacheco was a political activist and the Treasurer General of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. He was also commander-in-chief of the Cadets of the Republic, the official youth organization within the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. This quasi-military organization was also known as the Ejército Libertador de Puerto Rico.
Cadets of the Republic, known in Spanish as Cadetes de la República, was the paramilitary wing of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in the twentieth century. The organization was also referred to as the Liberation Army of Puerto Rico(Ejército Libertador de Puerto Rico).
