Novoselic was born to Croatian immigrants Krsto and Maria Novoselić in Compton, California. He lived there for one year before his parents moved to the Croatian neighborhood of San Pedro, where he remained for most of his childhood. Novoselic has a younger brother Robert, born in 1968. His sister Diana was born in 1973. His family moved to Aberdeen, Washington in 1979, because of rising property prices in California. In 1980, his parents sent him to live with relatives in Zadar,Croatia, then part of SFR Yugoslavia. He returned to Aberdeen in 1981.