← 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
Oliver Cromwell22 decades - 2
George I of Great Britainnot measured- - 3
Guy Fawkes22 decades - 4
Marie de' Medici22 decades - 5
Ivan Mazepa14 decades - 6
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John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlboroughnot measured- - 7
Frederick I of Prussianot measured- - 8
Louis XIII of France22 decades - 9
Jean-Baptiste Colbert22 decades - 10
Henry Morgan22 decades - 11
Samuel Pepys22 decades - 12
Henrietta Maria of France0 decades - 13
Richard Cromwell22 decades - 14
Koxinga10 decades - 15
Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia16 decades - 16
Christian IV of Denmark1 decades - 17
Sophia of Hanover2 decades - 18
Bohdan Khmelnytsky1 decades - 19
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckinghamnot measured- - 20
Albrecht von Wallenstein20 decades - 21
Hong Taiji0 decades - 22
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlboroughnot measured- - 23
Frederick III of Denmark0 decades - 24
Peter Stuyvesant22 decades - 25
Jahandar Shah5 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.