215,950 profiles ranked

← 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. 1Zhu Xi1130-1200 · 12th century · China · Writers870
  2. 2Li Hongzhang1823-1901 · 19th century · China · Politicians149
  3. 3Zhang Zhidong1837-1909 · 19th century · Politicians86
  4. 4Zuo Zongtang1812-1885 · 19th century · China · Politicians43
  5. 5Ban Gu32-92 · 1st century · Writers40
  6. 6Ge Hong284-364 · 4th century · Academics40
  7. 7Chen Shou233-297 · 3rd century · Writers14
  8. 8Mao Zedong1893-1976 · 20th century · China · Politicians12
  9. 9Lu Xun1881-1936 · 20th century · China · Writers11

Lived then

The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.

  1. 1Kitasato Shibasaburō1853-1931 · Japan · Academics0 decades
  2. 2Nakahama Manjirō1827-1898 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  3. 3Ninomiya Sontoku1787-1856 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  4. 4Inoue Enryō1858-1919 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  5. 5Kikuchi Dairoku1855-1917 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  6. 6Inoue Tetsujirō1856-1944 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  7. 7Aizawa Seishisai1782-1863 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  8. 8Nishi Amane1829-1897 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  9. 9Arai Ikunosuke1836-1909 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  10. 10Mikito Takayasu1860-1938 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  11. 11Taguchi Ukichi1855-1905 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  12. 12Koganei Yoshikiyo1859-1944 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  13. 13Tomii Masaakira1858-1935 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  14. 14Fujisawa Rikitarō1861-1933 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  15. 15Kiyozawa Manshi1863-1903 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  16. 16Takeki Ōwada1857-1910 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  17. 17Hayashi Jussai1768-1841 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  18. 18Hayashi Taisuke1854-1922 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  19. 19Juichi Soyeda1864-1929 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  20. 20Wada Nei1787-1840 · Japan · Academicsnot measured-
  21. 21Hiranuma Yoshirō1864-1938 · Japan · Academicsnot 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.