← Fame through time1500-1599
The 16th century
Whose working lives fell in the 16th century. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 16th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Miguel de Cervantes22 decades - 2
Hernán Cortés22 decades - 3
Philip II of Spain22 decades - 4
Catherine of Aragon20 decades - 5
Teresa of Ávila22 decades - 6
Ignatius of Loyola22 decades - 7
Francisco Pizarro22 decades - 8
Francis Xavier22 decades - 9
Joanna of Castile3 decades - 10
Lope de Vega22 decades - 11
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor0 decades - 12
John of the Cross22 decades - 13
Bartolomé de las Casas22 decades - 14
Juan Sebastián Elcano14 decades - 15
Hernando de Soto22 decades - 16
Vasco Núñez de Balboa19 decades - 17
Michael Servetus22 decades - 18
Garcilaso de la Vega22 decades - 19
Luis de Góngora22 decades - 20
Francisco de Orellana22 decades - 21
Pedro de Alvarado22 decades - 22
John of Austria22 decades - 23
Carlos, Prince of Asturias22 decades - 24
Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy22 decades - 25
Pedro de Valdivia22 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.