← 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 Chinese books during the 19th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Zhu Xi870 - 2
Li Hongzhang149 - 3
Zhang Zhidong86 - 4
Zuo Zongtang43 - 5
Ban Gu40 - 6
Ge Hong40 - 7Chen Shou14
- 8
Mao Zedong12 - 9
Lu Xun11
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Adam Opel12 decades - 2
August Oetkernot measured- - 3
Henry E. Steinwaynot measured- - 4
Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxisnot measured- - 5
Nathan Strausnot measured- - 6
Carl Heinrich von Siemensnot measured- - 7
Carl Walthernot measured- - 8
Carl Heinrich Theodor Knorrnot measured- - 9
Georg Wilhelm von Siemensnot measured- - 10
Gustav Beckernot measured- - 11
Theodor Bergmannnot measured- - 12
Friedrich Soenneckennot measured- - 13
Rudolf Mossenot measured- - 14
Guido Henckel von Donnersmarcknot measured- - 15
James Simonnot measured- - 16
Friedrich Weyerhäusernot measured- - 17
Hermann Tietznot measured- - 18
John Jacob Bauschnot measured- - 19
Arnold von Siemensnot measured- - 20
Conrad Dietrich Magirusnot measured- - 21
Georg Kraussnot measured- - 22
Friedrich Siemensnot measured- - 23
Ludwig Knoopnot measured- - 24Karl Godullanot measured-
- 25
Margarethe Kruppnot 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.