← 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 French books during the 20th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Voltaire23 - 2
Louis XIV of France15 - 3
Molière12 - 4
Stendhal10 - 5
Victor Hugo9.4 - 6
Louis XVI of France7.0 - 7
Montesquieu6.4 - 8
Louis XV of France6.2 - 9
François Fénelon4.6 - 10
Joan of Arc4.0 - 11
Napoleon III3.6 - 12
George Sand3.4 - 13
Louis XVIII of France3.1 - 14
François Mitterrand2.3 - 15
Pierre de Marivaux2.2 - 16
Anatole France2.2 - 17
Marie Antoinette2.1 - 18
Francis de Sales2.0 - 19
André Gide1.9 - 20
Léon Blum1.9 - 21
Jacques Chirac1.8 - 22
Charles X of France1.8 - 23
Paul Valéry1.7 - 24
Auguste Comte1.7 - 25
Marcel Proust1.7
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 20th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Mahatma Gandhi10 decades - 2
Narendra Modi2 decades - 3
Indira Gandhi7 decades - 4
Jawaharlal Nehru10 decades - 5
B. R. Ambedkar8 decades - 6
Amitabh Bachchan4 decades - 7
Srinivasa Ramanujan0 decades - 8
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam0 decades - 9
Rajiv Gandhi4 decades - 10
Droupadi Murmunot measured- - 11
Rajneesh3 decades - 12
Manmohan Singh5 decades - 13
Mukesh Ambani2 decades - 14
Pervez Musharraf2 decades - 15
Atal Bihari Vajpayee5 decades - 16
Subhas Chandra Bose9 decades - 17
Ravi Shankar6 decades - 18
Sridevi4 decades - 19
Arundhati Roy3 decades - 20
Raj Kapoor5 decades - 21
Lata Mangeshkar3 decades - 22
Satyajit Ray6 decades - 23
Hema Malini0 decades - 24
Jiddu Krishnamurti1 decades - 25
Vallabhbhai Patel9 decades - 26
C. V. Raman0 decades - 27
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan7 decades - 28
Dharmendra7 decades - 29
Rajinikanth1 decades - 30
Asha Bhosle0 decades - 31
Kalpana Chawla1 decades - 32
Jackie Shroff0 decades - 33
Amartya Sen4 decades - 34
Rajnath Singh1 decades - 35
Morarji Desai7 decades - 36
Anil Kapoor0 decades - 37
Rekhānot measured- - 38
Sathya Sai Baba4 decades - 39
Pratibha Patil0 decades - 40
Lal Bahadur Shastri7 decades - 41
Pranab Mukherjee5 decades - 42
Kamal Haasan0 decades - 43
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Khaleda Zia4 decades - 44
P. V. Narasimha Rao3 decades - 45
Mira Nairnot measured- - 46
Paramahansa Yogananda6 decades - 47
Rishi Kapoor0 decades - 48
Rajendra Prasad9 decades - 49
Aurobindo Ghosh4 decades - 50
Mamata Banerjee3 decades - 51
Mithun Chakraborty0 decades - 52
Madhubala2 decades - 53
Dilip Kumar7 decades - 54
Sarojini Naidu11 decades - 55
Nathuram Godse1 decades - 56
Ratan Tata3 decades - 57
Jaya Bachchan0 decades - 58
Amrish Puri0 decades - 59
Sanjay Duttnot measured- - 60
Ram Nath Kovind0 decades - 61
Ramana Maharshi6 decades - 62
Jayaram Jayalalithaanot measured- - 63
Lakshmi Mittal1 decades - 64
Sushma Swaraj3 decades - 65
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada0 decades - 66
Nana Patekarnot measured- - 67
Shabana Azmi1 decades - 68
Shashi Kapoornot measured- - 69
Homi Jehangir Bhabha0 decades - 70Phoolan Devi3 decades
- 71
Rajesh Khannanot measured- - 72
Nargisnot measured- - 73
Dhirubhai Ambani2 decades - 74
Charan Singh9 decades - 75
Kishore Kumarnot measured- - 76
Sunny Deolnot measured- - 77
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi5 decades - 78
Om Puri0 decades - 79
Chandra Shekhar6 decades - 80
Satyendra Nath Bose0 decades - 81
Sharmila Tagorenot measured- - 82
Anna Hazare1 decades - 83
Mohammed Rafi0 decades - 84
Anupam Khernot measured- - 85
Dimple Kapadianot measured- - 86
Nirmala Sitharamannot measured- - 87
Mahesh Bhattnot measured- - 88
Naseeruddin Shahnot measured- - 89
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haqnot measured- - 90
Zubin Mehta6 decades - 91
Meena Kumarinot measured- - 92
H. D. Deve Gowdanot measured- - 93
Dev Anandnot measured- - 94
Zeenat Amannot measured- - 95
Vinod Khannanot measured- - 96
Govindanot measured- - 97
Kabir Bedinot measured- - 98
Sunil Duttnot measured- - 99
Amrita Singhnot measured- - 100
Premchand11 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.