← 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
Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavarianot measured- - 2
Mathieu Orfilanot measured- - 3
Dolors Aleu i Rieranot measured- - 4
Concepción Aleixandre Ballesternot measured- - 5
María Elena Maseras Riberanot measured- - 6
Martina Castells Ballespínot measured- - 7
Pedro Mata y Fontanetnot measured- - 8
Diego de Argumosanot measured- - 9
Pedro Ramón y Cajalnot measured- - 10Francisco Romeronot measured-
- 11
Mariano Benaventenot measured- - 12
Eduardo Boscá Casanovesnot measured- - 13Joaquín Pi y Arsuaganot measured-
- 14
Josep Tolosanot measured- - 15
Melchor Sánchez de Toca y Sáenz de Loberanot measured- - 16Justo Ramón Casasúsnot measured-
- 17José Echegaray Lacostanot measured-
- 18Francisco Salmerón Lópeznot 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.