← 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
Thérèse of Lisieux10 decades - 2
Émile Durkheim11 decades - 3
Auguste Comte22 decades - 4
Henri Bergson12 decades - 5
Henri Poincaré13 decades - 6
Évariste Galois6 decades - 7
Joseph Fourier11 decades - 8
Jean-François Champollion6 decades - 9
Ernest Renan17 decades - 10
Charles Fourier19 decades - 11
Vilfredo Pareto13 decades - 12
Sophie Germain18 decades - 13
Augustin-Louis Cauchy0 decades - 14
Gustave Le Bon15 decades - 15
Frédéric Bastiat18 decades - 16
Allan Kardec16 decades - 17
Georges Sorel12 decades - 18
François Arago18 decades - 19
Henri Fayol11 decades - 20
Louis Auguste Blanqui19 decades - 21
Jean-Baptiste Say21 decades - 22
Léon Walras16 decades - 23
Charles Hermite7 decades - 24
Paul Painlevé13 decades - 25
Frédéric Passy17 decades - 26
Camille Jordannot measured- - 27
Émile Coué1 decades - 28
Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolisnot measured- - 29
Joseph Liouville0 decades - 30
Alphonse Bertillon11 decades - 31
Gaston Maspero12 decades - 32
Auguste Mariette11 decades - 33
Michel Chasles15 decades - 34
Pierre Janet14 decades - 35
Pyotr Lavrov10 decades - 36
Gabriel Tarde14 decades - 37
Victor Cousin20 decades - 38
Étienne Cabet3 decades - 39
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl9 decades - 40
Jean-Victor Poncelet0 decades - 41
Charles Émile Picard9 decades - 42
Antoine Augustin Cournot0 decades - 43
Jean Gaston Darboux10 decades - 44
Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi0 decades - 45
Pierre Larousse16 decades - 46
Michel Bréal16 decades - 47
Émile Littré7 decades - 48
Édouard Lucas2 decades - 49
Gabriel Lamé0 decades - 50
Józef Maria Hoene-Wrońskinot measured- - 51
Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play14 decades - 52
Sergei Winogradskynot measured- - 53
Maurice Blondel13 decades - 54
Alfred Loisy12 decades - 55
Charles Lavigerie2 decades - 56
Théodule-Armand Ribot13 decades - 57
Jacques de Morgan14 decades - 58
Pierre Leroux22 decades - 59
Édouard Schurénot measured- - 60
Louis Billotnot measured- - 61
Jacques-Joseph Champollionnot measured- - 62
Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusatnot measured- - 63
Joseph Bertrand19 decades - 64
Charles Bernard Renouvier13 decades - 65
Victor Prosper Considerantnot measured- - 66
Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilairenot measured- - 67
Georges Vacher de Lapougenot measured- - 68
Émile Boutroux10 decades - 69
Charles Dupin21 decades - 70
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes2 decades - 71
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquardnot measured- - 72
Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet16 decades - 73
Jane Dieulafoynot measured- - 74
François Magendie4 decades - 75
Jean-Jacques Ampère16 decades - 76
Étienne-Louis Malus0 decades - 77
Julie-Victoire Daubiénot measured- - 78
Émile Boiracnot measured- - 79
Victor Baschnot measured- - 80
Thomas Joannes Stieltjesnot measured- - 81
Stanislas Juliennot measured- - 82
Félix Ravaisson-Molliennot measured- - 83
Antonin Sertillangesnot measured- - 84
Barthélemy-Prosper Enfantinnot measured- - 85
Léon Duguit13 decades - 86
Achille Valenciennes0 decades - 87
Michel Chevaliernot measured- - 88
Paul Appell13 decades - 89
Jacques Philippe Marie Binetnot measured- - 90
Armand de Quatrefages de Bréaunot measured- - 91
Henri Milne-Edwards3 decades - 92
Paul Janetnot measured- - 93
Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydrenot measured- - 94
Émile Étienne Guimetnot measured- - 95
Joseph Valentin Boussinesq1 decades - 96
Paul-Émile Botta0 decades - 97
Paul Gervais14 decades - 98Pierre Wantzelnot measured-
- 99
Charles Gidenot measured- - 100
Paul Leroy-Beaulieunot 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.