Top 10 Most Famous Kings

[Sheilbh]

Lots of of Kings successfully unified the crown in their countries. If you are looking at a top 10 or top 20, that barely ranks as a reason to put someone on that list.


I think English speakers over estimate the familiarity of non-English speakers with English monarchs. I'd say a better measure is how well recognized the particular monarch is outside of his (or her) home country, and outside their particular cultural sphere. Otherwise, the top 10 is going be a big list of Chinese emperors with Princess Di (never mind that she wasn't a Queen) and Hirohito of Japan on the strength of the elementary education and pop-knowledge of one billion Chinese.

Though, I suppose one billion Indians may have a better familiarity with British monarchs, so that could skew it. Though I doubt they're much aware of James I or II.

It's of greatest, not most famous and, as I say, frankly there's slim pickings before the modern age. James successfully unified two countries which lasted until the present day (for the next ten days or so at least) which is rarer. His legacy's mixed because it also laid the ground for the Civil War, but he managed to work two separate political systems and keep both countries at peace and out of expensive foreign wars for the best part of 40 years. I've always felt he would've avoided the civil war as someone who was a bit more adept than Charles. In addition there's a big expansion of Empire under his reign.

I'm no great fan and it's a very low bar - as I say the best monarchs are figureheads - but I can't think of many greater before him (ALFRED!) or after.

You're right about knowledge though, I'd guess the most famous British monarchs are the women. If I had to guess I'd say Elizabeth II is probably the world's most famous monarch. Victoria was the face of the British Empire and a Bollywood director has done two biopics of Elizabeth I, plus other cameos like Shakespeare in Love.

Surprised all you snot-nosed, over-educated Languish history fascists don't have Henri IV listed anywhere.

The greatest.

I was in a remote mountain village in Nepal two years ago and in one of the restaurants there was a poster of Will and Kate. I wouldn't be surprised if they are the most famous "monarchs" at the moment.

That's not forgetting the Pacific Islanders who worship Prince Philip.

[Ed Anger]

Patrick McGoohan as Longshanks.

[Viking]

James I - 1,700,000,000
Queen Elizabeth I - 56,000,000
Queen Anne - 39,500,000
Queen Victoria - 26,200,000
King David - 24,700,000
Henry VIII - 13,100,000
Alexander the Great - 12,300,000
Peter the  Great - 11,700,000
Charles V - 10,100,000
Genghis Khan - 8,880,000

Charlemagne - 7,390,000
King Solomon - 4,590,000
Louis XIV - 4,540,000
Haile Selassie - 4,460,000
Edward Longshanks - 4,050,000
Shah Jahan - 3,880,000
Cyrus the Great  - 2,250,000
Tutankhamun - 2,090,000
Frederick the Great - 2,760,000
Tamerlane - 1,520,000
Gustavus II Aldolphus - 1,130,000
Richard the Lionheart - 1,260,000
Hammurabi - 1,210,000
Henri IV - 1,180,000
Ivan the Terrible - 946,000
Qin Shi Huang - 808,000
Meiji Emperor - 799,000
Augustus - 535,000
Sulemain the Magnificent - 375,000
John III of Poland - 112,000

Google searches, refined until no other options suggested and wikilink to correct wiki link in side window.. apparently "Lionheart" the van Damm movie generates a lot of links.

I think the 1.7 billion hits for King James are bible related, so are the 24M King David and 4M King Solomon ones as well. I mis-spelled John Sobieski first time round as "Jon III" getting 46 million AGOT relate hits.

[Tonitrus]

Patrick McGoohan as Longshanks.

King Ralph

[celedhring]

Google searches, refined until no other options suggested and wikilink to correct wiki link in side window.. apparently "Lionheart" the van Damm movie generates a lot of links.

That's gonna have a big language/cultural bias though. I.e. a search for "Isabel de Castilla" gives me 14 million hits, while "Isabella of Castille" just 350k (I haven't done much refining so your mileage may vary).

[CountDeMoney]

Surprised all you snot-nosed, over-educated Languish history fascists don't have Henri IV listed anywhere.

The greatest.

At least somebody has his head on straight around here.

[Zanza]

Google searches, refined until no other options suggested and wikilink to correct wiki link in side window.. apparently "Lionheart" the van Damm movie generates a lot of links.

That's gonna have a big language/cultural bias though. I.e. a search for "Isabel de Castilla" gives me 14 million hits, while "Isabella of Castille" just 350k (I haven't done much refining so your mileage may vary).

The number of search results isn't stable either. I just typed in "James I" and got 2.13 million results, without the quotation marks I got 1.94 billion results, which isn't the number Viking got.

[Sheilbh]

The number of search results isn't stable either. I just typed in "James I" and got 2.13 million results, without the quotation marks I got 1.94 billion results, which isn't the number Viking got.

Not to forget he's James VI of Scotland too

[mongers]

James I - 1,700,000,000
Queen Elizabeth I - 56,000,000
Queen Anne - 39,500,000
Queen Victoria - 26,200,000
King David - 24,700,000
Henry VIII - 13,100,000
Alexander the Great - 12,300,000
Peter the  Great - 11,700,000
Charles V - 10,100,000
Genghis Khan - 8,880,000

Charlemagne - 7,390,000
King Solomon - 4,590,000
Louis XIV - 4,540,000
Haile Selassie - 4,460,000
Edward Longshanks - 4,050,000
Shah Jahan - 3,880,000
Cyrus the Great  - 2,250,000
Tutankhamun - 2,090,000
Frederick the Great - 2,760,000
Tamerlane - 1,520,000
Gustavus II Aldolphus - 1,130,000
Richard the Lionheart - 1,260,000
Hammurabi - 1,210,000
Henri IV - 1,180,000
Ivan the Terrible - 946,000
Qin Shi Huang - 808,000
Meiji Emperor - 799,000
Augustus - 535,000
Sulemain the Magnificent - 375,000
John III of Poland - 112,000

Google searches, refined until no other options suggested and wikilink to correct wiki link in side window.. apparently "Lionheart" the van Damm movie generates a lot of links.

I think the 1.7 billion hits for King James are bible related, so are the 24M King David and 4M King Solomon ones as well. I mis-spelled John Sobieski first time round as "Jon III" getting 46 million AGOT relate hits.

Viking your methodology is shite. Googling for James I gives nearly 2 billion, whereas googling for James gives just 211 million, so google is incorporating searches for capital i.  Some of your other 'results' might be similarly affected.

[MadImmortalMan]

I was in a remote mountain village in Nepal two years ago and in one of the restaurants there was a poster of Will and Kate.

That's great, but did you get the headpiece?

He lost the drinking game.

[katmai]

Any list without Elvis sucks.