← 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 English books during the 20th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus30 - 2
Aristotle7.1 - 3
Plato7.1 - 4
Homer7.1 - 5
Augustus4.9 - 6
Johns Hopkins4.4 - 7
Cicero4.0 - 8
George Washington3.8 - 9
Socrates3.4 - 10
Virgil3.3 - 11
Abraham Lincoln2.0 - 12
Euclid1.9 - 13
Thomas Jefferson1.6 - 14
Ovid1.6 - 15
Mark Twain1.5 - 16
Plutarch1.5 - 17
Cleopatra1.4 - 18
Theodore Roosevelt1.4 - 19
Woodrow Wilson1.4 - 20
William Henry1.3 - 21
Benjamin Franklin1.3 - 22
Herodotus1.3 - 23
Charlemagne1.3 - 24
Rembrandt1.3 - 25
Euripides1.2
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 20th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
J. Robert Oppenheimer8 decades - 2
Richard Feynman4 decades - 3
Carl Sagan6 decades - 4
Wernher von Braun7 decades - 5
Steve Wozniak4 decades - 6
Howard Hughes9 decades - 7
Neil deGrasse Tyson1 decades - 8
Edward Teller8 decades - 9
James Watsonnot measured- - 10
Linus Pauling9 decades - 11
Zbigniew Brzezinski6 decades - 12
Jonas Salk7 decades - 13
Rachel Carson7 decades - 14
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar0 decades - 15
Michio Kaku2 decades - 16
Ernest Lawrence8 decades - 17
Wolfgang Paulinot measured-
- 18
Edwin Hubble5 decades - 19
Norman Borlaug5 decades - 20
Jack LaLanne0 decades - 21
Kip S. Thorne0 decades - 22
Tsung-Dao Lee0 decades - 23
Vera Rubin1 decades - 24
Robert H. Goddard7 decades - 25
Igor Sikorsky8 decades - 26
John Bardeen7 decades - 27
Raymond Kurzweil0 decades - 28
Eugene Wigner0 decades - 29
Stephen Jay Gould4 decades - 30
Thomas Kuhn5 decades - 31
Luis Walter Alvarez0 decades - 32
Murray Gell-Mann5 decades - 33
Vint Cerf1 decades - 34
Kary Mullis0 decades - 35
Barbara McClintock4 decades - 36
Chien-Shiung Wu6 decades - 37
Edward Witten0 decades - 38
Edward O. Wilson5 decades - 39
Steven Weinberg4 decades - 40
Isidor Isaac Rabi0 decades - 41
George Smoot0 decades - 42
David Grossnot measured- - 43
Steven Chu1 decades - 44
Lynn Margulis4 decades - 45
Glenn T. Seaborg0 decades - 46
William Anders0 decades - 47
Vannevar Bush9 decades - 48
Robert Andrews Millikan2 decades - 49
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan0 decades - 50
Douglas Engelbart1 decades - 51
Frances Arnoldnot measured- - 52
Thomas Hunt Morgan9 decades - 53
Clyde Tombaugh1 decades - 54
Jack Kilby1 decades - 55
George Gamow3 decades - 56
Yoichiro Nambu0 decades - 57
Har Gobind Khorana0 decades - 58
Francis Halzennot measured- - 59
Julian Seymour Schwinger0 decades - 60
John M. Martinisnot measured- - 61
Arthur Compton0 decades - 62
Frank Wilczek0 decades - 63
Lawrence M. Kraussnot measured- - 64
Ronald Waynenot measured- - 65
Felix Bloch3 decades - 66
Emilio Segrè0 decades - 67
Albert Szent-Györgyi0 decades - 68
James Franck10 decades - 69Gilbert N. Lewis3 decades
- 70
Brian Greenenot measured- - 71
Irving Langmuir11 decades - 72
Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov0 decades - 73
David Kochnot measured- - 74
Lisa Nowaknot measured- - 75
Willis Carriernot measured- - 76
Victor Ambros0 decades - 77
Robert Woodrow Wilsonnot measured- - 78
Harold Urey8 decades - 79
Jacque Fresconot measured- - 80
Philo Farnsworthnot measured- - 81
Anthony James Leggett0 decades - 82
Sheldon Lee Glashow0 decades - 83
Selman Waksman0 decades - 84
Charles H. Townes0 decades - 85
Charles Simonyinot measured- - 86
Saul Perlmutter0 decades - 87
Ei-ichi Negishi0 decades - 88
Walter Houser Brattain0 decades - 89
Carl David Anderson0 decades - 90
Ellen Ochoanot measured- - 91
Thomas Midgley Jr.not measured- - 92
Leon Thereminnot measured- - 93
Carol Greider0 decades - 94
Frank Drakenot measured- - 95
Robert Burns Woodward0 decades - 96
Percy Williams Bridgman0 decades - 97
Roy J. Glauber0 decades - 98
David Brinnot measured- - 99
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow0 decades - 100
Philip Warren Anderson0 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.