← Fame through time2020-2029
The 2020s
Who the world actually read about in the 2020s - readers across every language edition we measure, whoever they were and whenever they lived.
Most read
Who people actually looked up in the 2020s, across every language edition we measure (2020-2026 only - readership is measured from July 2015).
- 1
Donald Trump172.8M - 2
Elon Musk150.7M - 3
Elizabeth II139.3M - 4
Cristiano Ronaldo136.6M - 5
Lionel Messi116.3M - 6
Joe Biden106.7M - 7
Kamala Harris96.5M - 8
Jeffrey Dahmer95.3M - 9
Vladimir Putin93.8M - 10
Taylor Swift84.2M - 11
Jeffrey Epstein79M - 12
Michael Jackson70.7M - 13
Adolf Hitler67.7M - 14
Elvis Presley66.2M - 15
Kobe Bryant65.7M - 16
Kylian Mbappé64.3M - 17
Michael Jordan63.4M - 18
Tom Cruise62.2M - 19
Cleopatra61.9M - 20
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh61.6M - 21
Barack Obama61M - 22
Zendaya60.7M - 23
J. Robert Oppenheimer60M - 24
Diana, Princess of Wales59.4M - 25
Keanu Reeves59.1M
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 2020s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1Lionel Messi1 decades
- 2Cristiano Ronaldo2 decades
- 3Taylor Swift1 decades
- 4
Lady Gaga1 decades - 5
Ariana Grande1 decades - 6Kylian Mbappé1 decades
- 7
Novak Djokovic1 decades - 8
Neymar1 decades - 9
Tom Hollandnot measured- - 10
Selena Gomez1 decades - 11
Billie Eilish0 decades - 12
Justin Bieber1 decades - 13
Rihanna2 decades - 14
Dua Lipa0 decades - 15
Lewis Hamilton1 decades - 16Zendaya0 decades
- 17
Miley Cyrus1 decades - 18
Jennifer Lawrence1 decades - 19
Lamine Yamalnot measured- - 20
Erling Haalandnot measured- - 21
Emma Watson1 decades - 22
Harry Kanenot measured- - 23
Rafael Nadal2 decades - 24
Emma Stone1 decades - 25
Bruno Mars1 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.