← Fame through time1860-1869
The 1860s
Whose names filled the books of the 1860s - 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 1860s, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus89 - 2
Augustus12 - 3
Plato11 - 4
Homer11 - 5
Cicero10 - 6
Aristotle8.7 - 7
Herodotus6.2 - 8
Virgil5.9 - 9
Socrates5.4 - 10
Plutarch4.2 - 11
Charlemagne3.9 - 12
Robert Peel3.4 - 13
Walter Scott3.2 - 14
Strabo2.8 - 15
Demosthenes2.7 - 16
John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford2.7 - 17
Xenophon2.6 - 18
James II, Count of Urgell2.6 - 19
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor2.6 - 20
Origen2.6 - 21
Lord Byron2.6 - 22
Ovid2.5 - 23
Livy2.5 - 24
Abraham Lincoln2.5 - 25
Bede2.4 - 26
Euclid2.3 - 27
John the Baptist2.3 - 28
Otho2.2 - 29
Cleopatra2.2 - 30
Tertullian2.1 - 31
Solon2.1 - 32
William Henry2.1 - 33
George Grey2.0 - 34
Pericles1.9 - 35
Trajan1.7 - 36
Thucydides1.7 - 37
Richard II1.7 - 38
William H. Seward1.7 - 39
John Smith1.6 - 40
Hadrian1.6 - 41
Julius Caesar1.6 - 42
Jefferson Davis1.5 - 43
Andrew Johnson1.5 - 44
Sophocles1.4 - 45
Pythagoras1.4 - 46
Vespasian1.4 - 47
Euripides1.4 - 48
John Bull1.4 - 49
John Adams1.4 - 50
Pindar1.4 - 51
Ben Jonson1.3 - 52
Ahab1.3 - 53
Alexander the Great1.3 - 54
Manetho1.3 - 55
Adam Smith1.3 - 56
William the Conqueror1.3 - 57
Aristophanes1.2 - 58
Columba1.2 - 59
John Henry1.2 - 60
Oliver Cromwell1.2 - 61
Hippocrates1.2 - 62
William Hamilton1.2 - 63
Sulla1.2 - 64
Lucan1.1 - 65
Hosea1.1 - 66
Galen1.1 - 67
Domitian1.1 - 68
Horace Walpole1.1 - 69
Polybius1.0 - 70
Leigh Hunt1.0 - 71
George Washington1.0 - 72
Lucretius1.0 - 73
Sydney Smith0.99 - 74
Richard III0.98 - 75
Hesiod0.98 - 76
Diocletian0.96 - 77
Isaac Newton0.95 - 78
Edward the Confessor0.95 - 79
Rembrandt0.95 - 80
Alcibiades0.91 - 81
Charles Lamb0.91 - 82
Irenaeus0.90 - 83
Thomas More0.90 - 84
William Penn0.90 - 85
John Wesley0.89 - 86
Appian0.89 - 87
Sennacherib0.89 - 88
Suetonius0.88 - 89
Saladin0.87 - 90
Jehu0.86 - 91
Archimedes0.85 - 92
Sallust0.85 - 93
Walter Raleigh0.84 - 94
Charles Lyell0.82 - 95
Washington Irving0.82 - 96
Catiline0.82 - 97
Prince George, Duke of Cumberland0.80 - 98
Plautus0.80 - 99
Joshua Reynolds0.79 - 100
Croesus0.79
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1860s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Leo Tolstoy18 decades - 2
James A. Garfield16 decades - 3
Jules Verne16 decades - 4
Chester A. Arthur15 decades - 5
Alfred Nobel13 decades - 6
Lewis Carroll16 decades - 7
Emily Dickinson13 decades - 8
Benjamin Harrison19 decades - 9
Dmitri Mendeleev11 decades - 10
Franz Joseph I of Austria18 decades - 11
Johannes Brahms17 decades - 12
James Clerk Maxwell14 decades - 13
Henrik Ibsen14 decades - 14
Sitting Bull15 decades - 15
Louisa May Alcott14 decades - 16
Gustave Eiffel10 decades - 17
Édouard Manet15 decades - 18
Porfirio Díaz16 decades - 19
Edgar Degas11 decades - 20
Frederick III, German Emperornot measured- - 21
Johann Strauss II16 decades - 22
Geronimonot measured- - 23
Isabella II of Spain11 decades - 24
Maximilian I of Mexiconot measured- - 25
William Morris19 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.