← Fame through time1800-1899
The 19th century
Whose names filled the books of the 19th century - 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 German books during the 19th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Maria Theresa3.8 - 2
Jean Paul1.8 - 3
Paracelsus1.4 - 4
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor1.3 - 5
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor1.3 - 6
Gustav Adolph, Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow1.2 - 7
Hans Sachs0.99 - 8
William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel0.85 - 9
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor0.85 - 10
Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach0.84 - 11
George Frederick of Waldeck-Eisenberg0.84 - 12Władysław of Głogów0.78
- 13
Martin Luther0.78 - 14
Novalis0.77 - 15
Louis Philip, Count Palatine of Simmern-Kaiserslautern0.75 - 16
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor0.72 - 17
Frederick Charles, Duke of Württemberg-Winnental0.71 - 18
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor0.65 - 19
Albrecht Dürer0.64 - 20
Frederick William IV of Prussia0.59 - 21
Conradin0.58 - 22
Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg0.55 - 23
Catherine the Great0.55 - 24
Richard Wagner0.55 - 25
Francis Anthony, Count of Hohenzollern-Haigerloch0.53
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Karl Marx17 decades - 2
Ludwig van Beethoven21 decades - 3
Friedrich Nietzsche15 decades - 4
Otto von Bismarck16 decades - 5Richard Wagner19 decades
- 6
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel21 decades - 7
Carl Friedrich Gauss11 decades - 8
Wilhelm II, German Emperornot measured- - 9
Paul von Hindenburg10 decades - 10
Max Weber15 decades - 11
Max Planck14 decades - 12
Johannes Brahms17 decades - 13
Empress Elisabeth of Austria0 decades - 14
Robert Schumann19 decades - 15
Wilhelm Röntgen11 decades - 16
William I, German Emperornot measured- - 17
Carl von Clausewitz12 decades - 18
David Hilbert14 decades - 19
Richard Strauss13 decades - 20
Ludwig II of Bavarianot measured- - 21
Frederick III, German Emperornot measured- - 22
Robert Koch14 decades - 23
Klemens von Metternich0 decades - 24
Leopold I of Belgiumnot measured- - 25
E. T. A. Hoffmann21 decades - 26
Clara Zetkin11 decades - 27
Georg Cantor14 decades - 28
Pyotr Stolypin6 decades - 29
Albert, Prince Consortnot measured- - 30
Heinrich von Kleist22 decades - 31
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder13 decades - 32
Bernhard Riemann12 decades - 33
Gerhart Hauptmann13 decades - 34
Frederick William III of Prussianot measured- - 35
Christian IX of Denmark16 decades - 36
Karl May14 decades - 37Novalis22 decades
- 38
Heinrich Schliemann15 decades - 39
Friedrich Hölderlin18 decades - 40
Theodor Fontane17 decades - 41
Ernst Haeckel16 decades - 42
Ludwig Feuerbach19 decades - 43
Karl Benz11 decades - 44
Jacob Grimm21 decades - 45
Paul Ehrlich13 decades - 46
Wilhelm von Humboldt22 decades - 47
Carl Maria von Weber21 decades - 48
Georg Büchner17 decades - 49
Wilhelm Wundt15 decades - 50
Gottlob Frege9 decades - 51
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling9 decades - 52
Gottlieb Daimler11 decades - 53
Hermann von Helmholtz14 decades - 54
Justus von Liebig17 decades - 55
Otto Lilienthal13 decades - 56
Theodor Mommsen18 decades - 57
August von Mackensen2 decades - 58
Georg Ohm12 decades - 59
Werner von Siemens13 decades - 60
Karl Kautsky13 decades - 61
Carol I of Romanianot measured- - 62
August Bebel14 decades - 63
Wilhelm Busch15 decades - 64
Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeldnot measured- - 65
Max Liebermann13 decades - 66
Ludwig III of Bavarianot measured- - 67
Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhinenot measured- - 68
Erich von Falkenhayn6 decades - 69
Georgy Lvov2 decades - 70
Alois Alzheimer3 decades - 71
Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz0 decades - 72
Helmuth von Moltke the Younger0 decades - 73
Eduard Bernstein13 decades - 74
Max Müller5 decades - 75
Maximilian II of Bavaria0 decades - 76
Theodor Storm17 decades - 77
Friedrich Fröbel18 decades - 78
Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhinenot measured- - 79
Ferdinand von Zeppelin5 decades - 80
Karl Friedrich Schinkel16 decades - 81
Karl Weierstrass8 decades - 82
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi1 decades - 83
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen0 decades - 84
Philipp Lenard11 decades - 85
Wilhelm Grimm22 decades - 86
Bernhard von Bülow12 decades - 87
Caroline of Brunswick16 decades - 88
Princess Sophie of Bavarianot measured- - 89
Robert Bosch13 decades - 90
Leopold von Ranke16 decades - 91
Houston Stewart Chamberlain13 decades - 92
Leo von Caprivi5 decades - 93
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff14 decades - 94
Carl Zeiss13 decades - 95
Robert Bunsen9 decades - 96
August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben6 decades - 97
Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet0 decades - 98
Bettina von Arnim18 decades - 99
Felix Klein15 decades - 100
August Kekulé4 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.