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In their May 2008 article, "Who Is a Famous American? Charting Historical Memory Across the Generations," Sam Wineburg and Chaunce Monte-Sano reported on their survey of 2,000 high school juniors and seniors. The students were asked, "Starting from Columbus to the present day, jot down the names of the most famous Americans in history." The only qualification was that the people mentioned could not be Presidents or the wives of Presidents. The article listed the top 10 names; here is an expanded table of the top 100.

Also see: Famous Americans: How the Study Came to Be

 

Top 100 Famous Americans
Named by Students
Rank
Famous American
Percentage
Naming

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rosa Parks
Harriet Tubman
Susan B. Anthony
Ben Franklin
Amelia Earhart
Oprah Winfrey
Marilyn Monroe
Thomas Edison
Albert Einstein
Sacajawea
Malcolm X
Betsy Ross
Lewis and Clark
Michael Jordan
Bill Gates
Henry Ford
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Robert E. Lee
Babe Ruth
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Madonna
Martha Stewart
Helen Keller
Monica Lewinsky
Michael Jackson
Alexander Graham Bell
Wright brothers
Pocahontas
Sojourner Truth
Britney Spears
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
John D. Rockefeller
Frederick Douglass
Clara Barton
Condoleezza Rice
Jackie Robinson
Colin Powell
John Hancock
Maya Angelou
Emily Dickinson
Paul Revere
Alexander Hamilton
Janet Jackson
John Smith
Jennifer Lopez
Muhammad Ali
General MacArthur
Sandra Day O'Connor
Mark Twain
George Washington Carver
Booker T. Washington
Jane Addams
Madam C.J. Walker
Tupac
Aretha Franklin
Sally Ride
Eli Whitney
Betty Friedan
Alice Paul
Anne Hutchinson
Walt Disney
Margaret Sanger
Andrew Carnegie
Henry Clay
Madeleine Albright
George Patton
W.E.B. Du Bois
Halle Berry
Serena or Venus Williams
César Chávez
Lucille Ball
Davy Crockett
Tom Paine
Stonewall Jackson
Thurgood Marshall
Charles Lindbergh
Billy the Kid/Jesse James
Donald Trump
Jesse Jackson
Janet Reno
Barbara Walters
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Louis Armstrong
Jimi Hendrix
Al Capone
Mary McLeod Bethune
Daniel Boone
Hugh Hefner
Dorothea Dix
Molly Pitcher
Edgar Allan Poe
Audrey Hepburn
Janis Joplin
Tiger Woods
Patrick Henry
Francis Scott Key
General Custer
*Squanto
*Tina Turner
*Frank Sinatra
*Billie Holiday

67
60
44
34
29
23
22
19
18
16
14
12
12
12
11
10
9
9
9
9
8
8
7
7
6
6
6
6
5
5
5
5
5
5
4
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

*Tied for 100th place.