← Fame through time2017
2017
Who the world actually read about in 2017 - readers across every language edition we measure, whoever they were and whenever they lived.
Most read
Who people actually looked up in 2017, across every language edition we measure.
- 1
Donald Trump32.8M - 2
Elizabeth II20.9M - 3
Cristiano Ronaldo15.6M - 4
Queen Victorianot measured14.9M - 5
Gal Gadotnot measured14.3M - 6
Dwayne Johnson13.6M - 7
Pablo Escobar13.6M - 8
Elon Musk13.2M - 9
Ed Sheeran12.7M - 10
Lionel Messi12.6M - 11
Barack Obama12.3M - 12
Charles Manson12.3M - 13
O. J. Simpson12.2M - 14
Conor McGregor11.9M - 15
Adolf Hitler11.8M - 16
Melania Trump11.7M - 17
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon11.3M - 18
Ariana Grande11.2M - 19
Chester Bennington11.2M - 20
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh11M - 21
Albert Einstein10.4M - 22
Floyd Mayweather10.4M - 23
Vladimir Putin10.4M - 24
Tom Brady10.3M - 25
Eminem10.3M
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in 2017, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Priyanka Chopra0 decades - 2
Nicki Minaj1 decades - 3
Kirsten Dunst2 decades - 4
Ahmed al-Sharaanot measured- - 5
Jessica Biel0 decades - 6
Kelly Clarkson2 decades - 7
Lil Wayne1 decades - 8
Mikel Artetanot measured- - 9
Eddie Redmayne0 decades - 10
Anne Hathawaynot measured- - 11
Kaká1 decades - 12
Elisha Cuthbert0 decades - 13
Cobie Smulders0 decades - 14
Ilhan Omar0 decades - 15
Anna Paquinnot measured- - 16
Sebastian Stan0 decades - 17
Hayley Atwell0 decades - 18
Sophia Bush0 decades - 19
Pete Buttigieg0 decades - 20
Seth Rogen1 decades - 21
Matt Smith1 decades - 22
Rebecca Hallnot measured- - 23
Elisabeth Moss0 decades - 24
Jenny Slate0 decades - 25
Natalie Dormer0 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.