- Image by Stuck in Customs via Flickr
Who is the most famous person you have never heard of?
You don’t know? Neither do I. Kinda hard to tell until you find out about a new famous person and then they don’t qualify. 
Until today I had never heard of Burt Bacharach, but I understand that he was quite famous. He wrote a lot of very famous songs that I am pretty sure I have heard, but I am not sure. I don’t do titles. I did recognize “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”. He was most famous in the 50′s through 70′s, when I was not listening to the radio much. That might be why I had not heard of him, but I have heard of many others from his generation.
How is it that someone could be soo famous and still be so obscure? It probably has to do with the fact that there are millions of famous people and some are bound to get lost in the crowd.
I wonder who the top 100 most famous people in all of history are, and what percentage of the world population has heard of each. I also wonder how much that list changes from year to year.
Related posts:
Hi Luke, I remember Burt Bacharach, but he was popular with older people back in the ’70′s – not exactly Mr. Rock and Roll. In entertainment I bet top 100 changes very quickly. I was thinking about the “Laugh In” cast the other day … Goldie Hawn, Judy Carne, Jo Anne Worley, Rowan and Martin, Ruth Buzzi, Henry Gibson (who just passed away), Arte Johnson. They were huge names, and other than Goldie few people probably remember them today. Very few names from a 1979 list would be on a 2009 list.
.-= Brad Shorr´s last blog ..Must-Have Web Tools for Small Businesses =-.
Luke, you’ve made me feel old. Fame is made of circles, some of the overlap others don’t. The real question is how many people have to care before you are considered famous. A thousand, a million, hundred million?
.-= Fred H Schlegel´s last blog ..The Power Of “What Can I Do?” and Puppies Behind Bars =-.
Brad, I remember hearing about someone named Goldie, but nobody ever mentioned her last name so I am not sure if she was the same person.
The top 100 entertainers really does change fast, but I would like to think that names like Washington, Franklin and Lincoln would stay on or near the top 100 overall for quite awhile. Also, I am quite sure that Confucius, Buddha, Mao Zedong, and Hu Jintao are on the list because of a certain HUGE population that knows them quite well.
Fred, even a thousand would make you popular on a small scale, but to have a shot at world-class-fame you have to be in the hundreds of thousands at least. Wouldn’t that be a fun survey – to see how many people in the world have been heard of by at least 100,000,000?
Luke, If you don’t know Goldie Hawn, I feel as old as Fred.
Please tell me you’ve heard of Kurt Russell. Actually, I knew I was a fossil when I mentioned John Lennon to a group of coworkers a few years ago and none of them knew who he was. If you move beyond of the realm of entertainment, I think your list becomes more stable. Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, are names with real staying power that come to mind.
.-= Brad Shorr´s last blog ..Must-Have Web Tools for Small Businesses =-.
Oh yeah, I have heard of Ol’ Copper. I just did not know his real name was Kurt Russell.
I looked up both Kurt and Goldie, and I have seen or heard of a few of their movies but didn’t really like any of them.
I have heard of John Lennon, just not until twenty years after his death. He is still pretty famous, though. Your co-workers must have been living under a rock.