← Fame through time1600-1699
The 17th century
Whose working lives fell in the 17th 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 17th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Miyamoto Musashi2 decades - 2
Yamamoto Tsunetomo0 decades - 3
Takakazu Seki0 decades - 4
Arai Hakuseki0 decades - 5
Hayashi Razan0 decades - 6
Kaibara Ekken0 decades - 7
Yamazaki Ansai0 decades - 8
Itō Jinsai0 decades - 9
Yoshida Mitsuyoshi0 decades - 10
Keichū0 decades - 11
Hayashi Gahō0 decades - 12
Kumazawa Banzan0 decades - 13Takebe Katahiro0 decades
- 14
Ikeda Mitsumasa0 decades - 15
Hayashi Hōkōnot measured- - 16Kambei Morinot measured-
- 17
Muro Kyūsōnot measured-
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.