← Fame through time1900-1999
The 20th century
Whose names filled the books of the 20th 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 German books during the 20th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Thomas Mann6.1 - 2
Novalis5.5 - 3
Karl Marx4.7 - 4
Jean Paul4.3 - 5
Adolf Hitler2.6 - 6
Maria Theresa2.5 - 7
Max Weber2.5 - 8
Paracelsus2.5 - 9
Richard Wagner2.4 - 10
Friedrich Engels2.3 - 11
Friedrich Schlegel1.8 - 12
Erich Honecker1.7 - 13
Heinrich Mann1.7 - 14
Martin Luther1.6 - 15
Heinrich Heine1.6 - 16
Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach1.5 - 17
Karl Kraus1.5 - 18
Walter Ulbricht1.4 - 19
Hans Sachs1.4 - 20
William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel1.4 - 21
Gottfried Keller1.4 - 22
Rosa Luxemburg1.4 - 23
Gerhart Hauptmann1.4 - 24
Gustav Adolph, Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow1.3 - 25
Tannhäuser1.3
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 20th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Édith Piaf6 decades - 2
Charles Aznavour8 decades - 3
Maurice Ravel12 decades - 4
Johnny Hallyday6 decades - 5
Serge Gainsbourg6 decades - 6
Igor Stravinsky11 decades - 7
Erik Satie11 decades - 8
France Gall6 decades - 9
Jean-Michel Jarre4 decades - 10
Mireille Mathieu6 decades - 11
Django Reinhardt7 decades - 12
Françoise Hardy6 decades - 13
Maurice Chevalier10 decades - 14
Georges Brassens7 decades - 15
Amanda Learnot measured- - 16
Maurice Jarre7 decades - 17
Michel Legrand7 decades - 18
Manu Chaonot measured- - 19
Angelique Kidjo0 decades - 20
Goran Bregović0 decades - 21
Richard Clayderman0 decades - 22
Francis Poulenc10 decades - 23
Claude Françoisnot measured- - 24
Pierre Boulez7 decades - 25
Juliette Gréconot 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.