← Fame through time1820-1829
The 1820s
Whose names filled the books of the 1820s - 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 1820s, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus121 - 2
Homer19 - 3
Cicero16 - 4
Virgil14 - 5
Augustus13 - 6
Lord Byron12 - 7
Plato10 - 8
Aristotle9.9 - 9
Plutarch8.2 - 10
Herodotus7.7 - 11
Socrates7.0 - 12
Ovid6.3 - 13
Strabo6.0 - 14
Demosthenes5.7 - 15
Livy4.6 - 16
Cleopatra4.4 - 17
Xenophon4.2 - 18
Tertullian4.1 - 19
Origen4.0 - 20
Charlemagne4.0 - 21
Pericles3.4 - 22
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor3.3 - 23
Walter Scott3.1 - 24
James II, Count of Urgell3.0 - 25
Trajan2.9 - 26
Thucydides2.9 - 27
Pythagoras2.9 - 28
Euripides2.8 - 29
John Bull2.8 - 30
John the Baptist2.8 - 31
Julius Caesar2.7 - 32
Aristophanes2.7 - 33
Ben Jonson2.6 - 34
Otho2.6 - 35
Solon2.6
- 36
Richard II2.6
- 37
Pindar2.5 - 38
Polybius2.5 - 39
Alcibiades2.5 - 40
Bede2.4 - 41
Vespasian2.4 - 42
Euclid2.4 - 43
Sophocles2.3 - 44
Isaac Newton2.3 - 45
Alexander the Great2.2 - 46
Ahab2.2 - 47
Hippocrates2.2 - 48
Arrian2.0 - 49
Lucan2.0
- 50
Themistocles1.9 - 51
Lucretius1.9 - 52
Hesiod1.8 - 53
John Smith1.8 - 54
William Jones1.8 - 55
William the Conqueror1.7 - 56
Galen1.7 - 57
Suetonius1.7 - 58
Oliver Cromwell1.7 - 59
Epicurus1.7 - 60
Domitian1.6 - 61
Irenaeus1.6 - 62
Adam Smith1.6 - 63
Belisarius1.6 - 64
Anacreon1.6
- 65
Richard III1.6
- 66
Plautus1.5 - 67
Joshua Reynolds1.5 - 68
Thomas More1.5 - 69
Sappho1.5 - 70
Sallust1.5 - 71
Robert Walpole1.4 - 72
Catiline1.4 - 73
Saladin1.4 - 74
John Adams1.4 - 75
Archimedes1.3 - 76
Catullus1.3 - 77
Hosea1.3 - 78
Caligula1.3 - 79
Nicias1.3 - 80
William Penn1.3 - 81
Quintilian1.3 - 82
Croesus1.3 - 83
Diodorus Siculus1.2 - 84
Anne Boleyn1.2 - 85Procopius1.2
- 86
Warren Hastings1.2 - 87
Thomas Smith1.2 - 88
Appian1.2 - 89
Edward Coke1.2 - 90
Edward the Confessor1.2 - 91
Epaminondas1.2 - 92
Joseph Banks1.1 - 93
Jehu1.1 - 94
Phidias1.1 - 95
Hadrian1.1 - 96
Walter Raleigh1.1 - 97
Theophrastus1.1 - 98
Theocritus1.1 - 99
Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox1.1 - 100
William Henry1.1
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1820s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Lord Byron22 decades - 2
Arthur Schopenhauer20 decades - 3
James Buchanan22 decades - 4
John Tyler22 decades - 5
Percy Bysshe Shelley21 decades - 6
Franz Schubert22 decades - 7
Michael Faraday20 decades - 8
John Keats21 decades - 9
Pope Pius IX18 decades - 10
Charles Babbage20 decades - 11
Shaka22 decades - 12
Gioachino Rossini20 decades - 13
Leopold I of Belgiumnot measured- - 14
Alessandro Manzoni22 decades - 15
Antonio López de Santa Anna18 decades
- 16
Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma18 decades - 17
Ferdinand I of Austrianot measured- - 18
Robert Peel22 decades - 19
Samuel Morse0 decades - 20
Mahmud II14 decades - 21
James Fenimore Cooper18 decades - 22
Alphonse de Lamartine20 decades - 23
Sam Houston20 decades - 24
Jean-François Champollion6 decades - 25
Davy Crockett19 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.