← 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
Hernán Cortés22 decades - 2
Francisco Pizarro22 decades - 3
Joanna of Castile3 decades - 4
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor0 decades - 5
Juan Sebastián Elcano14 decades - 6
Hernando de Soto22 decades - 7
Vasco Núñez de Balboa19 decades - 8
Pedro de Alvarado22 decades - 9
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca8 decades - 10
Maria of Aragon, Queen of Portugalnot measured- - 11
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado14 decades - 12
Diego de Almagro22 decades - 13
Miguel López de Legazpi14 decades - 14
Bernal Díaz del Brawl22 decades - 15
Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugalnot measured- - 16
Gonzalo Pizarro22 decades - 17
Pedro de Mendoza0 decades - 18
Juan Díaz de Solís15 decades - 19
Ferdinand Columbus15 decades - 20
Sebastián de Belalcázar15 decades - 21
Andrés de Urdaneta19 decades - 22
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada0 decades - 23
Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira4 decades - 24
Francisco Hernández de Cordobanot measured- - 25
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés13 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.