#1Famous people · Penetanguishene, Ontario
20 famous people come from Penetanguishene, James LaBrie the best known
Articles in 37 languages make the Canadian singer James LaBrie the best known. Patrick DesRochers and Bert Corbeau follow. Between Confederation and 1913, 8 were born, the most of any period. Over 117 years of births, the list goes from Alfred Burke Thompson (1862) to Patrick DesRochers (1979).
Born here
20
confirmed by Wikipedia
Best known
James LaBrie
37 Wikipedia and sister-site articles
First
1862
Alfred Burke Thompson
Youngest
1979
Patrick DesRochers
Most common field
Sports
10 people
What stands out about Penetanguishene’s famous people
★ What stands out · Through the years
When Penetanguishene’s famous people were born
More were born in the 1960s than in any other decade: 5.
SportsPolitics & LawWriting & ArtsMusicNotable
Each dot is a person, stacked by the decade they were born.
The best known
Born in Penetanguishene
#1
#2Sports
Patrick DesRochers
born 1979Canadian ice hockey player
7 Wikipedia and sister-site articlesWikipedia ↗
#3Sports
Bert Corbeau
1894–1942Canadian ice hockey player
6 Wikipedia and sister-site articlesWikipedia ↗
Known for
What Penetanguishene is known for
Set against the usual town, leaders come out 1.4 times as common.
For comparison, the usual town: how the people listed across Canadian towns split by field. Tap a field to list its people.
Everyone
Everyone else born in Penetanguishene
17 more names, born between 1862 and 1976.
No one matches both filters.
Next door
Famous people from the towns next door
Count of the towns around it with a famous name listed: 3.
Questions about famous people from Penetanguishene
Who is the most famous person from Penetanguishene?
The top name is James LaBrie (Canadian singer), going by Wikipedia coverage. Next come Patrick DesRochers and Bert Corbeau.
How many famous people were born in Penetanguishene?
Wikidata places 25 here in all, and those missing from the list lack a confirming article.
What is Penetanguishene known for?
50% of the list, where Canadian towns come to 38%.
Who is the earliest-born famous person from Penetanguishene?
The earliest is Alfred Burke Thompson, born in 1862, and the latest birth listed is 1979.
Who counts as from Penetanguishene?
What counts is a birth that Wikidata places inside Penetanguishene’s municipal boundary (Statistics Canada’s 2021 census subdivision), its hospitals and districts too, and that the person’s English or French Wikipedia article repeats. Adult performers, people known chiefly for crimes and those who only lived here are not on the list.
Why is someone missing?
Wikidata may give their birthplace only as Canada or a province, as a rural area or hamlet without a page here, or as another town; or their article may name a different place, or none. Only people both sources agree on are listed, and a fix on Wikidata or Wikipedia shows up here at the next refresh.
Birthplaces, descriptions, years, occupations and the count of Wikipedia and sister-site articles come from Wikidata (CC0). Each birthplace is checked against the person’s English Wikipedia article, or the French one where English says nothing or has no article; the articles are linked, never quoted. Wikidata’s Statistics Canada code, the place’s name or its point inside the 2021 census outline puts a birth in a town, and a birth given only as a split city stays on that city’s page. Fields are read from the description and occupations, and the list runs by number of articles. “The usual town” is everyone listed across Canadian towns. Portraits: each person’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Photo credits (10)
- James LaBrie: Dario De Marco, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Patrick DesRochers: TheAHL, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Bert Corbeau: Unknown author, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- George McNamara: Unknown author, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- William Alfred Robinson: Law Society of Upper Canada Archives from Canada, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Con Corbeau: Unknown author, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Gilles Marchildon: Unknown author, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Herb Drury: Tri-State News Bureau, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Paul Anthony Kelly: Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Damien Robitaille: Pierre5018, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).