← 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
Louis XIV of France22 decades - 2
Charles I of England12 decades - 3
James VI and I5 decades - 4
Charles II of England12 decades - 5
Aurangzeb20 decades - 6
Shah Jahan16 decades - 7
James II of England3 decades - 8
William III of England2 decades - 9
Philip IV of Spain20 decades - 10
Jahangirnot measured- - 11
Shivaji14 decades - 12
Alexis of Russia21 decades - 13
Michael of Russia19 decades - 14
Christina, Queen of Swedennot measured- - 15
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperornot measured- - 16
John III Sobieski10 decades - 17
Prince Eugene of Savoy22 decades - 18
Abel Tasman8 decades - 19
Ivan V of Russia3 decades - 20
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperornot measured- - 21
Kösem Sultan0 decades - 22
Henry Hudson22 decades - 23
Samuel de Champlain17 decades - 24
Ibrahim of the Ottoman Empirenot measured- - 25
False Dmitry I10 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.