← 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
John Philip Sousa13 decades - 2
Ignacy Jan Paderewski0 decades - 3
Stephen Foster18 decades - 4
Solomon Northup3 decades - 5
Fanny Crosby4 decades - 6
Edward MacDowell11 decades - 7
Josiah Warren5 decades - 8
Louis Moreau Gottschalknot measured- - 9
Emma Smithnot measured- - 10
Victor Herbertnot measured- - 11
Alexander Silotinot measured- - 12
Alexander Gretchaninov0 decades - 13
James Pierpontnot measured- - 14
David Edward Hughes0 decades - 15
Phoebe Hearstnot measured- - 16
Francis James Childnot measured- - 17
Ernestine Schumann-Heinknot measured- - 18
Lowell Masonnot measured- - 19
Philip Blissnot measured- - 20
Horatio Parkernot measured- - 21
Ira D. Sankeynot measured- - 22
Ida Craddocknot measured- - 23
Moriz Rosenthalnot measured- - 24
George Whitefield Chadwicknot measured- - 25Mildred J. Hillnot 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.