Claim profile
400–499

The 5th century

Whose working lives fell in the 5th century. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.

Lived then

The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 5th century, ranked where Wikipedia coverage and readership agree.

CountryAll🇫🇷 France🇮🇹 Italy🇯🇵 Japan🇬🇧 United Kingdom🇪🇬 Egypt🇹🇷 Turkey🇨🇳 China🇩🇪 Germany🇲🇽 Mexico🇮🇩 Indonesia
FieldAllPoliticiansHistorical FiguresWritersReligious FiguresAcademicsModelsDoctorsActorsBusiness ProfessionalsMusicians
  1. 1Pope Leo IPope Leo I390–461 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures2 decades
  2. 2Pope Innocent IPope Innocent I400–417 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  3. 3Pope Celestine IPope Celestine I400–432 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  4. 4Pope HormisdasPope Hormisdas450–523 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures1 decades
  5. 5Pope HilariusPope Hilarius415–468 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  6. 6Pope SymmachusPope Symmachus460–514 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures7 decades
  7. 7Pope Felix IIIPope Felix III440–492 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  8. 8Pope Sixtus IIIPope Sixtus III390–440 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  9. 9Pope ZosimusPope Zosimus400–418 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures3 decades
  10. 10Pope SimpliciusPope Simplicius420–483 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  11. 11Pope Boniface IPope Boniface I370–422 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  12. 12Pope Anastasius IIPope Anastasius IIdied 498 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades

How this is measured

  • Placing people in time. Each person belongs to the century in which they were most active — around age 35, and never after their death.
  • Who ranks highest. Within a century, people are ranked where two independent signals agree: how many of the world’s Wikipedia language editions cover them, and how many people actually read about them. Article counts alone can be lifted by a person’s own circle; readers cannot.
  • Fame in print. The curves count how often a name appears in Google Books from 1800 to 2019, as a share of all the words printed each year, in the person’s own language wherever that corpus exists. Those decades are over, so each measurement is made once and kept.
  • What is left out. A lifetime is measured only from 1820, when there is enough print to judge; the five years after a death are skipped as obituaries; and a name shared with someone equally notable is credited to neither.