← 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 Chinese books during the 20th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Mao Zedong275 - 2
Lu Xun60 - 3
Liu Shaoqi58 - 4
Zhou Enlai55 - 5
Lin Biao40 - 6
Deng Xiaoping34 - 7
Sun Yat-sen31 - 8
Jiang Zemin13 - 9
Confucius12 - 10
Jiang Qing10 - 11
Zhu De9.6 - 12
Cao Xueqin5.9 - 13
Li Peng5.4 - 14
Lee Teng-hui5.2 - 15
Yuan Shikai5.0 - 16
Laozi4.7 - 17
Lin Yutang4.6 - 18
Soong Ching-ling4.4 - 19Gao Ming3.4
- 20
Zhuang Zhou2.8 - 21
Li Bai2.3 - 22
Kang Youwei2.3 - 23
Li Hongzhang2.0 - 24Wang Chong1.9
- 25
Wang Anshi1.7
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 20th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Marilyn Monroe7 decades - 2
Bruce Lee5 decades - 3
Robin Williams7 decades - 4
Charlie Chaplin11 decades - 5
Arnold Schwarzenegger4 decades - 6
Brad Pitt3 decades - 7
Brigitte Bardot7 decades - 8
Robert De Niro5 decades - 9
Clint Eastwood6 decades - 10
Jackie Channot measured- - 11
Judy Garland9 decades - 12
Johnny Depp3 decades - 13
Tom Cruise4 decades - 14
Marlon Brando7 decades - 15
Tom Hanks4 decades - 16
Meryl Streep4 decades - 17
Audrey Hepburn7 decades - 18
Elizabeth Taylor9 decades - 19
Keanu Reeves3 decades - 20
Al Pacino5 decades - 21
Sean Connery6 decades - 22
Sandra Bullock3 decades - 23
Sylvester Stallone5 decades - 24
Jim Carrey3 decades - 25
George Clooney3 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.