← 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 Hebrew books during the 21st century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Reuven Rivlin15 - 2
Ahad Ha'am9.8 - 3
Rav Ashi9.5 - 4
Haggai9.3 - 5
Shimon Peres7.2 - 6
Paul the Apostle6.8 - 7
Menachem Begin6.0 - 8
Yitzhak Rabin5.9 - 9
Moshe Dayan5.7 - 10
Shimon bar Yochai5.2 - 11Simeon ben Gamliel II4.6
- 12
Hayyim ben Joseph Vital4.5 - 13
Hai Gaon4.5 - 14
Johanan ben Zakai4.4 - 15
Ariel Sharon4.3 - 16
Josephus4.2 - 17Saadia Gaon4.0
- 18
Golda Meir3.9 - 19
Moses Sofer3.9 - 20Nathan the Babylonian3.7
- 21
Ehud Barak3.6 - 22
Baal Shem Tov3.5 - 23
Habakkuk3.4 - 24
Moshe Sharett3.1 - 25
Levi Eshkol3.1
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.
- 1Taylor Swift1 decades
- 2
Lady Gaga1 decades - 3
Scarlett Johansson2 decades - 4Ariana Grande1 decades
- 5
Leonardo DiCaprio3 decades - 6
Angelina Jolie2 decades - 7
Katy Perry1 decades - 8
Selena Gomez1 decades - 9LeBron James2 decades
- 10
Billie Eilish0 decades - 11
Eminem2 decades - 12
Zendaya0 decades - 13
Miley Cyrus1 decades - 14
Jennifer Lawrence1 decades - 15
Matt Damon3 decades - 16
Jennifer Lopez3 decades - 17
Natalie Portman2 decades - 18
Kanye West2 decades - 19
Beyoncé2 decades - 20
Chris Pratt0 decades - 21
Jennifer Aniston2 decades - 22
Ben Affleck2 decades - 23
Bradley Cooper1 decades - 24
Julia Roberts3 decades - 25
Serena Williams2 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.