← Fame through time1800-1809
The 1800s
Whose names filled the books of the 1800s - anyone at all, however long dead - counted as mentions per million words printed, so a period that simply published more does not inflate anyone.
Talked about then
Whose names appeared most in English books during the 1800s, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus107 - 2
Homer26 - 3
Cicero22 - 4
Virgil21 - 5
Augustus16 - 6
Plato12 - 7
Aristotle12 - 8
Plutarch9.9 - 9
Socrates8.9 - 10
Herodotus7.8 - 11
Ovid7.8 - 12
Demosthenes6.2 - 13
Cleopatra5.8 - 14
Strabo5.5 - 15
Charlemagne4.5 - 16
Livy3.9 - 17
Xenophon3.6 - 18
Pindar3.6 - 19
Pericles3.6 - 20
William Jones3.5 - 21
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor3.3 - 22
Solon3.3 - 23
Pythagoras3.2 - 24
Otho3.2 - 25
Euripides3.2 - 26
Isaac Newton3.2 - 27
Trajan3.2 - 28
Lucretius3.1 - 29
James II, Count of Urgell3.1 - 30
Alcibiades3.0 - 31
Hippocrates2.8 - 32
Vespasian2.8 - 33
Richard II2.8 - 34
Polybius2.8 - 35
Euclid2.8 - 36
Origen2.6 - 37
Lucan2.6 - 38
Robert Walpole2.6 - 39
John the Baptist2.5 - 40
Alexander the Great2.5 - 41
Bede2.5 - 42
Julius Caesar2.4 - 43
Anacreon2.4 - 44
Sophocles2.4 - 45
Themistocles2.4 - 46
Domitian2.3 - 47
Suetonius2.3 - 48
Sallust2.3 - 49
Ahab2.2 - 50
Galen2.2 - 51
Quintilian2.2 - 52
Joseph Banks2.1 - 53
Tertullian2.1 - 54
Epicurus2.1 - 55
William the Conqueror2.0 - 56
Aristophanes2.0 - 57
John Smith2.0 - 58
Ben Jonson2.0 - 59
Sidney Smith2.0 - 60
Thucydides2.0 - 61
Hesiod1.9 - 62
Catiline1.8 - 63
Caligula1.7 - 64
Theocritus1.7 - 65
Galba1.7 - 66
Germanicus1.7 - 67
Archimedes1.7 - 68
John of Gaunt1.7 - 69
Henry Clinton1.6 - 70
John Bull1.6 - 71
Oliver Cromwell1.6 - 72
Sappho1.6 - 73
Belisarius1.6 - 74
Arrian1.6 - 75
Phocion1.6 - 76
Joshua Reynolds1.5 - 77
Plautus1.5 - 78
Persius1.5 - 79
Nicias1.5 - 80
Vitellius1.5 - 81
Walter Raleigh1.4 - 82
Epaminondas1.4 - 83
Edward the Confessor1.4 - 84
Richard III1.4 - 85
Cimon1.3 - 86
Epictetus1.3 - 87
Hadrian1.2 - 88
Catullus1.2 - 89
Thomas More1.2 - 90
Saladin1.2 - 91
Claudian1.2 - 92
Timur1.2 - 93
Edward Coke1.2 - 94
Jehu1.2 - 95Procopius1.1
- 96
Appian1.1 - 97
Saint George1.1 - 98
Diocletian1.1 - 99
Diodorus Siculus1.1 - 100
Adam Smith1.1
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1800s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Napoleon22 decades - 2
Ludwig van Beethoven21 decades - 3
Andrew Jackson22 decades - 4
John Quincy Adams22 decades - 5
William Henry Harrison22 decades - 6
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel21 decades - 7
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellingtonnot measured- - 8
William Wordsworth22 decades - 9
Walter Scott22 decades - 10
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor22 decades - 11
Louis Philippe I19 decades - 12
Alexander von Humboldt8 decades - 13
Samuel Taylor Coleridge19 decades - 14
Caspar David Friedrich11 decades - 15
Klemens von Metternich0 decades - 16
Muhammad Ali of Egypt0 decades - 17
Joachim Murat21 decades - 18
François-René de Chateaubriand11 decades - 19
John Dalton22 decades - 20
Joseph Bonaparte22 decades - 21
Pope Gregory XVI19 decades - 22
Germaine de Staël10 decades - 23
Thomas Robert Malthus8 decades - 24
Frederick William III of Prussianot measured- - 25
Joseph Fourier11 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.