← Fame through time2000-2099
The 21st century
Whose names filled the books of the 21st 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 Spanish books during the 21st century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Fidel Castro4.1 - 2
Lope de Vega4.1 - 3
Francis Xavier4.0 - 4
Simón Bolívar3.3 - 5
Octavio Paz3.1 - 6
John of God2.9 - 7
Vicente Fox2.8 - 8
Benito Juárez2.7 - 9
Porfirio Díaz2.6 - 10
Rubén Darío2.5 - 11
Andrés Bello2.4 - 12
Hugo Chávez2.1 - 13
Antonio Machado2.0 - 14
Miguel de Cervantes2.0 - 15
Christopher Columbus1.9 - 16
Jorge Luis Borges1.9 - 17
Pablo Neruda1.8 - 18
Hernán Cortés1.8 - 19
Juan Ramón Jiménez1.7 - 20
Federico García Lorca1.6 - 21
Carlos Fuentes1.5 - 22
Felipe González1.5 - 23
Che Guevara1.5 - 24
Salvador Allende1.3 - 25
Miguel de Unamuno1.3
Most read
Who people actually looked up in the 21st century, across every language edition we measure (2015-2026 only - readership is measured from July 2015).
- 1
Donald Trump336.3M - 2
Elizabeth II223.3M - 3
Cristiano Ronaldo211.6M - 4
Elon Musk207.7M - 5
Lionel Messi178.6M - 6
Vladimir Putin136.2M - 7
Joe Biden124M - 8
Freddie Mercury122.9M - 9
Jeffrey Dahmer120.3M - 10
Adolf Hitler118.7M - 11
Taylor Swift117.8M - 12
Barack Obama115.9M - 13
Michael Jackson114.4M - 14
Pablo Escobar114.4M - 15
Kamala Harris113.6M - 16
Dwayne Johnson111M - 17
Queen Victorianot measured105.6M - 18
Keanu Reeves103.4M - 19
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh102.1M - 20
Elvis Presley99.6M - 21
Tom Cruise99.4M - 22
LeBron James99.2M - 23
Jeffrey Epstein98.7M - 24
Michael Jordan98.4M - 25
Ariana Grande98M
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 21st century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1LeBron James2 decades
- 2
Kobe Bryant2 decades - 3
Shaquille O'Neal3 decades - 4
Stephen Curry1 decades - 5
Kevin Durant1 decades - 6
Giannis Antetokounmpo0 decades - 7
Luka Dončićnot measured- - 8
Tim Duncan2 decades - 9
Yao Ming4 decades - 10
Russell Westbrook0 decades - 11
Chris Paul0 decades - 12
Allen Iverson2 decades - 13
Nikola Jokićnot measured- - 14
Dwyane Wade1 decades - 15
James Harden0 decades - 16
Carmelo Anthony1 decades - 17
Derrick Rose0 decades - 18
Kyrie Irving0 decades - 19
Dirk Nowitzki2 decades - 20
Tony Parker2 decades - 21
Scottie Pippen3 decades - 22
Klay Thompson0 decades - 23
Steve Nash2 decades - 24
Kawhi Leonard0 decades - 25Shai Gilgeous-Alexandernot 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.