Seth MacFarlane's Real Name: Seth Woodbury MacFarlane

Quick answer: Seth MacFarlane's full name is Seth Woodbury MacFarlane. He was born on October 26, 1973, in Kent, Connecticut. He created Family Guy, in which he voices several characters, including baby Stewie, and co-created American Dad! and The Cleveland Show. He also directed Ted and created and stars in The Orville (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files him as "MacFarlane, Seth, 1973-." One citation reads "b. Oct. 26, 1973, Kent, Conn.; birth name: Seth Woodbury MacFarlane." The record also carries the variant spelling "McFarlane, Seth," from credits and a title page that dropped the "a." Britannica confirms the birth date and Kent, Connecticut.

Britannica says he showed a talent for cartooning at a young age and studied animation at the Rhode Island School of Design. His student film, the animated short The Life of Larry (1995), caught the eye of Hanna-Barbera executives, who hired him that year. There he worked on Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo. In 1996 he made a short sequel, Larry and Steve, about a dim-witted man and his wise-talking dog. Fox then asked him to develop it into a series.

Career highlights

The result was Family Guy, which premiered right after Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999. MacFarlane wrote, animated, produced, and voiced characters for the show about the Griffin family: Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, baby Stewie, and Brian the talking dog. He won a 2000 Emmy for his voice work as Stewie. Fox canceled the show in 2003, but record DVD sales and strong Cartoon Network reruns brought it back in 2005.

He co-created American Dad! (2005), about an ultrapatriotic CIA agent, which moved from Fox to TBS in 2014. He also co-created the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show (2009–13). In 2017 he launched The Orville, a sci-fi dramedy in which he plays a starship captain.

His feature debut as writer and director was Ted (2012), with Mark Wahlberg and MacFarlane as the voice of the teddy bear. It grossed more than $500 million and earned him an Oscar nomination for best original song. A sequel followed in 2015. He hosted the 85th Academy Awards in 2013. He co-wrote, directed, and starred in A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) and adapted it as a novel. He voiced a mouse in Sing (2016), appeared in Logan Lucky (2017), and was cast in The Loudest Voice (2019).

Name notes for searchers

Woodbury is his middle name. MacFarlane is spelled with "Mac," though some early credits print "McFarlane," a variant LOC records. Both refer to the same person.