← 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
Douglas MacArthur10 decades - 2
Ted Bundy4 decades - 3
Lee Harvey Oswald6 decades - 4
Jeffrey Dahmer3 decades - 5
Wallis Simpson4 decades - 6
Chester W. Nimitz8 decades - 7
Ed Geinnot measured- - 8
Albert Fishnot measured- - 9
Desmond Dossnot measured- - 10
Richard E. Byrd10 decades - 11Christopher McCandlessnot measured-
- 12
Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.not measured- - 13
Peter II of Yugoslavia0 decades - 14
Yonatan Netanyahunot measured- - 15
Leon Czolgosznot measured- - 16
William Halsey Jr.not measured- - 17
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.not measured- - 18
Steve Fossettnot measured- - 19
Kathleen Cavendishnot measured- - 20
Ada Blackjacknot measured- - 21
Wiley Postnot measured- - 22
Frederick Cooknot measured- - 23
Matthew Hensonnot measured- - 24
Roy Chapman Andrewsnot measured- - 25
Don Walshnot 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.