← 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
Isaac Newton22 decades - 2
John Locke22 decades - 3
Oliver Cromwell22 decades - 4
Charles I of England12 decades - 5
James VI and I5 decades - 6
Charles II of England12 decades - 7
Thomas Hobbes22 decades - 8
John Milton22 decades - 9
James II of England3 decades - 10
Daniel Defoe22 decades - 11
Guy Fawkes22 decades - 12
Robert Hooke22 decades - 13
Ben Jonson22 decades - 14
Christopher Wren22 decades - 15
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John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlboroughnot measured- - 16
John Bunyan22 decades - 17
Mary II of England0 decades - 18
John Smith22 decades - 19
Henry Morgan22 decades - 20
Henry Purcell22 decades - 21
John Dryden22 decades - 22
Edmond Halley6 decades - 23
Richard Cromwell22 decades - 24
Anne of Denmark6 decades - 25
William Harvey22 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.