← 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
Napoleon22 decades - 2
Queen Victorianot measured- - 3
Edward VII13 decades - 4
Alexander I of Russia21 decades - 5
Wilhelm II, German Emperornot measured- - 6
Alexander II of Russia17 decades - 7
Franz Joseph I of Austria18 decades - 8
Alexander III of Russia16 decades - 9
Leopold II of Belgium9 decades - 10
Empress Elisabeth of Austria0 decades - 11
Empress Dowager Cixi5 decades - 12
Emperor Meiji11 decades - 13
Abdul Hamid II13 decades - 14
William I, German Emperornot measured- - 15
David Livingstone17 decades - 16
Shaka22 decades - 17
Alexander von Humboldt8 decades - 18
Ludwig II of Bavarianot measured- - 19
Mehmed VI0 decades - 20
Umberto I of Italy14 decades - 21
Leopold I of Belgiumnot measured- - 22
Ferdinand Foch7 decades - 23
Pedro II of Brazil0 decades - 24
Pedro I of Brazil0 decades - 25
Alexandra of Denmark2 decades
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.