← 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 English books during the 19th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus94 - 2
Homer15 - 3
Cicero13 - 4
Augustus13 - 5
Plato10 - 6
Virgil9.6 - 7
Aristotle9.4 - 8
Socrates6.4 - 9
Herodotus6.2 - 10
Plutarch5.6 - 11
Ovid4.2 - 12
Strabo4.1 - 13
Charlemagne3.9 - 14
Demosthenes3.8 - 15
Lord Byron3.6 - 16
Livy3.4 - 17
Origen3.1 - 18
Cleopatra3.0 - 19
Xenophon3.0 - 20
Walter Scott3.0 - 21
Tertullian2.7 - 22
James II, Count of Urgell2.6 - 23
Robert Peel2.6 - 24
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor2.6 - 25
Pericles2.5
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Napoleon22 decades - 2
Ferdinand Foch7 decades - 3
Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma18 decades - 4
Eugénie de Montijo17 decades - 5
Oscar I of Sweden0 decades - 6
Marie Thérèse of Francenot measured- - 7
Charles Albert of Sardinia18 decades - 8
Charles de Foucauld11 decades - 9
Jean Lannes1 decades - 10
Désirée Clary14 decades - 11
Louise of Orléansnot measured- - 12
Jules Dumont d'Urville1 decades - 13
Napoléon Louis Bonaparte0 decades - 14
Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza9 decades - 15
Prince Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans0 decades - 16
Archduchess Adelaide of Austrianot measured- - 17
Empress Amélie of Brazil1 decades - 18
Astolphe-Louis-Léonor de Custine, Marquis de Custine10 decades - 19
Stéphanie de Beauharnais14 decades - 20
Antoine of Orléans, Duke of Montpensier0 decades - 21
René Caillié19 decades - 22
Prince Philipp, 4th Prince of Kohárynot measured- - 23
Princess Elisabeth of Savoynot measured- - 24
Francis Garnier16 decades - 25
Princess Maria Carolina, Duchess of Aumalenot measured-
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.