AI assisted: contains AI generated content.
I was watching Jet Lag and there was a “Name 100 Women” challenge, so I tried it myself.
Conclusion: the world is still a hard place for women.
Disclaimer: All of this is based on the website, which is in turn based on Wikidata (cutoff date unknown - probably today?), so if I got something wrong, it’s Wikidata.
Rules
The original post’s rules on Twitter, transcribed by Gemini 2.0 Flash:
Name 100 Women Challenge
- Cannot use chat
- Can be dead women
- Can be streamers
- Can be any version of their name (ex. Marilyn Monroe aka Norma Jean)
- Spelling doesn’t count as long as your heart is in the right place
- No family friends or ex girlfriend or neighbors or any of that they have to be googleable women/public figures
- No fictional characters must be someone with real blood in their veins
- No repeats
- Timer starts as soon as you type first letter of first name, ends when you type last letter of last name
- Must be typed out in a list labeled 1 - 100
- Have to say their name not a description (ex Michelle Obama Good, Obamas Wife Bad)
glhf
I also made a rule to exclude idols & voice actors from Japan, because I know a lot.
That turned out to be painful, but I think it is worth it.
Results
It took me 01:17:07 to list 100 women - that was very bad.
Name 100 Women: My full list
- Ada Lovelace: English mathematician (1815–1852)
- Grace Hopper: American computer scientist and United States Navy officer (1906–1992)
- Wu Zetian: founding empress of Zhou dynasty (r. 690–705); de facto ruler of Tang dynasty from 665 to 690
- Park Geun-hye: President of South Korea from 2013 to 2017
- Sasha Obama: daughter of former US President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama
- Michelle Obama: lawyer and former First Lady of the United States
- Hillary Clinton: American politician and diplomat (born 1947)
- Amy Coney Barrett: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2020
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 to 2020
- Kamala Harris: Vice President of the United States from 2021 to 2025
- Marie Curie: Polish and French physicist and chemist (1867–1934)
- Anne Frank: German-born Dutch Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim (1929–1945)
- Angela Merkel: chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021
- J. K. Rowling: British author and philanthropist (born 1965)
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: United States Representative from New York since 2019
- Marine Le Pen: French politician (born 1968)
- Elizabeth II: Queen of the United Kingdom from 1952 to 2022
- Victoria: Queen of the United Kingdom from 1837 to 1901
- Emma Watson: English actress and activist (born 1990)
- Taylor Swift: American singer-songwriter (born 1989)
- Kristen Anderson-Lopez: American songwriter
- Avril Lavigne: Canadian singer and songwriter (born 1984)
- Zendaya: American actress and singer
- Idina Menzel: American actress and singer
- Kristen Bell: American actress and singer (born 1980)
- Lea Salonga: Filipina singer and actress (born 1971)
- Mary, Queen of Scots: Queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567
- Melania Trump: first lady of the United States (2017–2021, since 2025)
- Tu Youyou: Chinese medical scientist
- Kim Geon-hee: South Korean short track speed skater
- Kim Ju-ae: daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju
- Peng Liyuan: Chinese Soprano, Spouse of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party since 2012
- Maurie McInnis: American historian and university president
- Britney Spears: American pop singer, songwriter, actress and model
- Lady Gaga: American singer, songwriter, and actress (born 1986)
- Rachel Platten: American singer, songwriter and author (born 1981)
- Selena Gomez: American singer and actress (born 1992)
- KT Tunstall: Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist
- Nicola Sturgeon: First Minister of Scotland from 2014 to 2023
- Liz Truss: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2022
- Margaret Thatcher: British stateswoman and prime minister (1925–2013)
- Theresa May: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2016 to 2019
- Teresa Teng: Taiwanese ROC singer (1953-1995)
- Alice Weidel: German politician (born 1979)
- Alice Munro: Canadian writer (1931–2024)
- Rachel Carson: American marine biologist and conservationist (1907-1964)
- Meghan Trainor: American singer-songwriter (born 1993)
- Elizabeth I of England: Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603
- Catherine, Princess of Wales: member of the British Royal Family and princess of Wales since 2022
- Murasaki Shikibu: Japanese novelist and poet (c.973–c.1014)
- Sachiko Kobayashi: Japanese singer (1953-)
- Milet: Japanese singer-songwriter
- Jill Biden: First Lady of the United States from 2021 to 2025
- Nancy Pelosi: American politician (born 1940)
- Elizabeth Warren: American politician (born 1949)
- Kanae Minato: Japanese crime fiction writer
- Banana Yoshimoto: Japanese writer
- Elizabeth Holmes: American biotechnology entrepreneur convicted of fraud
- Jacqueline de Chevigny: French religious servant and biblical scholar (1911–1993)
- Rosalind Franklin: British chemist, biophysicist, and X-ray crystallographer
- Choi Sun-sil: South Korean shaman and cult leader (born 1956)
- Akie Abe: wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe
- Yuriko Koike: Japanese politician (born 1952)
- Amelia Earhart: American aviation pioneer and author (1897-1939)
- Susan Collins: United States Senator from Maine since 1997
- Malia Obama: daughter of former US President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama
- Wang Zhaojun: one of the Four Beauties of ancient China
- nirvAnA: Singaporean progamer
- Meghan, Duchess of Sussex: member of the British royal family and Duchess of Sussex since 2018
- Diana, Princess of Wales: member of the British royal family and Princess of Wales (1961–1997)
- Sonia Sotomayor: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2009
- Elena Kagan: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2010
- Ketanji Brown Jackson: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2022
- Emily Brontë: English novelist and poet (1818–1848)
- Aung San Suu Kyi: Former State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy
- Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân: Chairwoman of the National Assembly of Vietnam
- Sabrina Carpenter: American singer and actress (born 1999)
- Greta Thunberg: Swedish climate protection activist (born 2003)
- Jane Austen: English novelist (1775–1817)
- Queen Camilla: Queen Consort of the United Kingdom since 2022
- Florence Nightingale: English social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing (1820–1910)
- Mother Teresa: Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and missionary (1910–1997)
- Jiang Qing: Chinese political figure and wife of Mao Zedong (1914–1991)
- Tsai Ing-wen: 14th and 15th President of Republic of China(Taiwan)
- Miyuki Miyabe: Japanese novelist
- G.E.M.: Hong Kong singer-songwriter
- Vanessa Trump: ex-wife of Donald Trump Jr. (born 1977)
- Carrie Lam: former Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- Agnes of Rome: Christian martyr
- Malala Yousafzai: Pakistani children’s education activist
- Amy Carter: daughter of United States president Jimmy Carter
- Huang Yueying: Zhuge Liang’s wife
- Tao Huabi: Chinese entrepreneur, founder of Lao Gan Ma
- Empress Dowager Cixi: Chinese empress (1835–1908)
- Toby Hendy: New Zealand science communicator
- Pauli Murray: American writer, activist, lawyer and Episcopal priest (1910-1985)
- Audrey Hepburn: British actress (1929–1993)
- Lin Yi-han: Taiwanese writer
- Kim Kardashian: American media personality, businesswoman, model and actress (born 1980)
- Amber Heard: American actress
I had no idea who nirvAnA was, but I also found out that Zhan Ying was not on Wikidata, so I guess we were even.
As for my 14 wrong guesses, they were mostly misspellings, but I did learn that (Wikidata says) Demi Lovato & Miley Cyrus were genderfluid. Sorry!
Analysis
I asked Claude 3.7 Sonnet who I might have missed, and here are some people I did know (not personally, obviously) but miss:
- Rosa Parks: American civil rights activist
- Joan of Arc: French military leader and Catholic saint
- Cleopatra: Last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt
- Indira Gandhi: Former Prime Minister of India
- Serena Williams: American tennis player
- Eleanor Roosevelt: American political figure and diplomat
- Beyoncé: American singer and entrepreneur
- Helen Keller: American author and disability rights advocate
- Madonna: American singer and cultural icon
I guess Cleopatra and Hellen Keller were the two people I should have remembered.
(Update: I was doing the 100 men list, then I remembered Lisa Su and Janet Yellen. Definitely should not have forgotten about them.)
Then I asked Claude 3.7 Sonnet for more analysis, so here goes:
Limited representation from Africa, South America, Middle East, and South Asia (with exceptions like Malala Yousafzai)
Yep, a majority of those people are from “the West” and East Asia.
Strong representation of female political leaders and First Ladies/political spouses
I guess I’m into politics.
Ada Lovelace (#1) and Grace Hopper (#2) are prominently positioned at the top
The two HPC clusters I’ve logged in to so far are called ada
and grace
. Also thanks to Nvidia for naming their products after these two.
Many women on the list were “firsts” in their fields
Sure, but I guess no one is tracking the first men in their fields. Again, the world is still a hard place for women.
An app?
I’m sure a list of either men, or idols & voice actors from Japan, will go much more smoothly.
There doesn’t seem to be an app around for that, so maybe I’ll write one as a side project, or just do it myself.
My initial thought was to hook up Wikidata and rely on its statements, such as “instance of: human” and “sex or gender: female”.
But then I checked Wikidata and a lot of lesser-known people (Itō Momoka, Takao Sayaka, and Morokuzu Noa, to name a few) are not on Wikipedia at all.
And the solutions don’t look great either:
- LLM as a judge: complexity, not deterministic anymore, need to figure out web search.
- Hook up 48pedia: not scalable to other categories of niche people or things.
And so the project was called off.
Name 100 Men
This took me 50 minutes and 27 seconds, which I think is not that faster than naming 100 women. So I think there is a skill issue on my part as well.
Note: I used gpt-4o-2024-08-06
to generate the descriptions, and edited out some out-of-date ones.
Name 100 Men: My full list
- Boris Johnson: British politician, former Prime Minister of the UK.
- Winston Churchill: British statesman, Prime Minister during WWII (1874–1965).
- Napoleon Bonaparte: French military leader and emperor (1769–1821).
- Nelson Mandela: South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and President (1918–2013).
- Imran Khan: Pakistani politician, former Prime Minister, and cricketer.
- Sadiq Khan: Mayor of London, former Member of Parliament.
- Sam Altman: Entrepreneur, CEO of OpenAI.
- John F. Kennedy: 35th President of the United States (1917–1963).
- Joseph Stalin: Leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to 1953.
- Leo Tolstoy: Russian author known for “War and Peace” (1828–1910).
- Randall Munroe: Creator of the webcomic xkcd.
- John Cena: Professional wrestler and actor.
- Ed Miliband: British politician, former Leader of the Labour Party.
- Justin Trudeau: Former Prime Minister of Canada.
- Emmanuel Macron: President of France.
- Boris Kozinsky: Researcher and scientist in materials science.
- Don McLean: American singer-songwriter, famous for “American Pie.”
- Langston Hughes: American poet and leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance (1902–1967).
- Peter Salovey: Former President of Yale University, psychologist.
- Alexander Hamilton: Founding Father of the US, first Secretary of the Treasury (1755–1804).
- Peter the Great: Emperor of Russia, modernized the Russian state (1672–1725).
- Petro Poroshenko: Former President of Ukraine.
- Dmitry Medvedev: Russian politician, former President and Prime Minister.
- Vladimir Putin: President of Russia.
- Roh Tae-woo: Former President of South Korea (1932–2021).
- Lee Hsien Loong: Prime Minister of Singapore.
- Nate Silver: American statistician, political analyst, editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.
- Antonin Scalia: Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the US (1936–2016).
- Lee Kuan Yew: Founding Prime Minister of Singapore (1923–2015).
- Jensen Huang: CEO and co-founder of NVIDIA Corporation.
- Bernie Sanders: US Senator, known for his progressive policies.
- John Bercow: Former Speaker of the House of Commons in the UK.
- Keir Starmer: Prime Minister of UK.
- Jeremy Corbyn: Former Leader of the Labour Party in the UK.
- Sam Bankman-Fried: Cryptocurrency entrepreneur, CEO of FTX.
- Henry Ford: Founder of Ford Motor Company, innovator of mass production (1863–1947).
- Richard Feynman: American theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate (1918–1988).
- Tim Cook: CEO of Apple Inc.
- Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States.
- Albert Einstein: Physicist known for the theory of relativity (1879–1955).
- Erich Honecker: Leader of East Germany (1912–1994).
- Billy Ray Cyrus: American singer-songwriter, known for “Achy Breaky Heart.”
- Tim McGraw: American country singer and actor.
- Satya Nadella: CEO of Microsoft.
- Paul Graham: Co-founder of Y Combinator, programmer and entrepreneur.
- Andrej Karpathy: AI researcher and former Director of AI at Tesla.
- Kim Jong Un: Supreme Leader of North Korea.
- Kim Il Sung: Founder of North Korea, leader from 1948 to 1994.
- Kim Jong Il: Leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011.
- Chiang Kai-shek: Chinese political and military leader (1887–1975).
- Alfred Nobel: Inventor of dynamite, founder of the Nobel Prizes (1833–1896).
- Olaf Scholz: Chancellor of Germany.
- Pope Francis: Current head of the Catholic Church.
- Lafayette: French aristocrat and military officer in the American Revolutionary War (1757–1834).
- Alexander the Great: King of Macedonia, created a vast empire (356–323 BC).
- Genghis Khan: Founder of the Mongol Empire (c. 1162–1227).
- Mikhail Gorbachev: Final leader of the Soviet Union, known for reforms (1931–2022).
- Vladimir Lenin: Leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, head of Soviet Russia (1870–1924).
- Friedrich Engels: German philosopher, co-author of “The Communist Manifesto” (1820–1895).
- Friedrich Merz: German politician, leader of the CDU.
- Friedrich Nietzsche: German philosopher known for his ideas on nihilism (1844–1900).
- Friedrich Hayek: Economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism (1899–1992).
- John Maynard Keynes: Influential British economist (1883–1946).
- Noam Chomsky: American linguist, philosopher, and political activist.
- Linus Torvalds: Creator of the Linux operating system.
- Slavoj Žižek: Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic.
- Steve Jobs: Co-founder of Apple Inc., innovator in technology (1955–2011).
- Bill Gates: Co-founder of Microsoft, philanthropist.
- George H. W. Bush: 41st President of the United States (1924–2018).
- George W. Bush: 43rd President of the United States.
- Bill Clinton: 42nd President of the United States.
- Jerome Powell: Chair of the Federal Reserve.
- Donald Trump: 45th President of the United States.
- Michael Bloomberg: Business magnate, former Mayor of New York City.
- Leonard Bernstein: American composer and conductor (1918–1990).
- Antonio Vivaldi: Italian Baroque composer (1678–1741).
- Bedřich Smetana: Czech composer known for his nationalistic music (1824–1884).
- Alexander Pushkin: Russian poet and playwright (1799–1837).
- Georgy Sviridov: Russian composer known for choral and orchestral works (1915–1998).
- Joe Biden: 46th President of the United States.
- Moon Jae-in: Former President of South Korea.
- Phil Scott: Governor of Vermont.
- Babe Ruth: Legendary American baseball player (1895–1948).
- Michael Schumacher: Seven-time Formula One World Champion.
- Richard Stallman: Advocate of free software, founder of the Free Software Foundation.
- Raymond Chen: Noted software engineer at Microsoft.
- Sergei Shoigu: Russian Minister of Defense.
- Yevgeny Prigozhin: Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin.
- Bashar al-Assad: Ousted President of Syria.
- Leonardo da Vinci: Italian polymath and artist (1452–1519).
- Sigmund Freud: Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856–1939).
- William III of England: King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1650–1702).
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: 32nd President of the United States, led during the Great Depression and WWII (1882–1945).
- Al Gore: Former Vice President of the United States, environmental activist.
- William Sanford Nye (Bill Nye): Science educator and television presenter.
- Carl Sagan: Astronomer and science communicator (1934–1996).
- Kazuo Ishiguro: British novelist, Nobel Prize winner in Literature.
- Lionel Messi: Argentine professional footballer, one of the greatest players of all time.
- Pierre Trudeau: Former Prime Minister of Canada, father of Justin Trudeau (1919–2000).
- Mark Carney: Prime Minister of Canada.
There’s no point asking who I might have missed, so I asked Claude 3.7 Sonnet to critique me:
Political Leaders: The largest category
Yep, I guess I am into politics.
Several notable CEOs and entrepreneurs
And I also read too much Hacker News.
Limited representation from Africa, South America, and the Middle East
I am not knowledgeable enough - seems like an area of improvement.
About 30% are deceased, while 70% are living or recently living figures
I am a modern person, it seems.
Mark Carney is incorrectly listed as “Prime Minister of Canada”)
This is so recent that I can’t expect Claude to know, but sorry Claude, you don’t know.
(By the way, GPT-4o said “Former Governor of the Bank of England”.)
Comparative analysis
Claude 3.7 Sonnet says:
Men’s list features more individuals who held direct political/economic power
I think this is what some see is wrong with the world today, and I don’t disagree.
Women’s list includes more individuals defined by relationship to powerful men
Sorry! Same as my last comment.
The women’s list includes more recent (post-2020) figures
Hmm, interesting. I have no idea why.
Men’s list includes more historical “canonical” figures
I learned about them in school more, probably.
Men’s list Very few under 40 years old, Women’s List Includes several young contemporary figures
Some also see this as what’s wrong; again, I don’t disagree.
Name 100 idols & voice actors
This being the fun part, I am hereby proclaiming this to take under 30 minutes. Maybe even 15?
I doubt that an off-the-shelf AI model would be able to analyze this though. Perhaps it is time for manual classification? But the border between idols & voice actors isn’t that well-defined.
Anyways, here goes the list I made:
Name 100 idols & voice actors: My full list
- 櫻井陽菜
- 葉山風花
- 来栖りん
- 楡井希実
- 野中ここな
- 菅叶和
- 花宮初奈
- 佐々木琴子
- 月音こな
- 佐々木美玲
- 渡邉美穂 (アイドル)
- 小坂菜緒
- 平手友梨奈
- 生駒里奈
- 生田絵梨花
- 齋藤飛鳥
- 西野七瀬
- 橋本奈々未
- 深川麻衣
- 船井美玖
- 小野寺梓
- 松本ももな
- 伊達さゆり
- 岬なこ
- 青山なぎさ
- Liyuu
- ペイトン尚未
- 大熊和奏
- 薮島朱音
- 鈴原希実
- 絵森彩
- ゆかな
- 坂倉花
- 古賀葵
- 飯田ヒカル
- 遠野ひかる
- 小鹿なお
- 松田彩音
- 長月あおい
- 神田沙也加
- 新内眞衣
- 菅野真衣
- 渡辺美穂
- 指原莉乃
- 瀧野由美子
- 指出毬亜
- 久保田未夢
- 芹澤優
- 村上まなつ
- 長江里加
- 立花日菜
- 矢野妃菜喜
- 大西亜玖璃
- 高尾奏音
- 前田佳織里
- 相良茉優
- 内田秀
- 内田彩
- 内田真礼
- 田中美久
- 田中美海
- 伊藤美来
- 豊田萌絵
- 黒沢ともよ
- 小泉萌香
- 岩田陽葵
- 冨田菜々風
- 野口衣織
- 山本杏奈
- 大橋彩香
- 福原綾香
- 種田梨沙
- 種﨑敦美
- 今井麻美
- 黒木ほの香
- 小山百代
- 汐入あすか
- 会沢紗弥
- 生田輝
- 伊藤彩沙
- Pile
- 新田恵海
- 三森すずこ
- 小宮有紗
- 逢田梨香子
- 斉藤朱夏
- 伊波杏樹
- 降幡愛
- 小林愛香
- Machico
- 木戸衣吹
- 山崎エリイ
- 小倉唯
- 土屋李央
- 稗田寧々
- 雨宮天
- 麻倉もも
- 夏川椎菜
- 橘美來
- 水瀬いのり
And that only took 17:53 - pretty close to 15.
(Note the lack of “Japanese” as a quantifier here because Liyuu, but also because I forgot about Amaki Sally.)
I did end up (asking Claude 3.7 Sonnet and heavily-re) writing a Python script that polls Japanese Wikipedia. Writing it took more time than I would have liked though.
Here’s a cute asciinema
- see me type & make typos:
Screen recording
Did you know that 小阪菜緒 and 小坂奈緒 are redirects to 小坂菜緒? I didn’t!