Which playing card appears most in books?
The Queen of Hearts: 77 mentions per billion words in English books since 1950, just ahead of the Queen of Spades (72). In Victorian books she led by far, with 148, nearly three times the next card, the Ace of Spades (55). British books since 1950 are the exception: there the Queen of Spades leads, with 231.
Source: Google Books Ngram Viewer, English books 1840–1899 and 1950–2019.
What stands out
- The Ace of Spades is the most mentioned ace in English books since 1950, third overall at 59.1 per billion words.
- The Queen of Spades climbs from 8th in Victorian books (26.3) to second since 1950 (72.4).
- In British books the Ace of Clubs is second, at 128.8, ahead of the Queen of Hearts (121.9).
- Diamonds sink to the bottom: five of the six least mentioned cards since 1950 are diamonds, the Six of Diamonds last at 2.2.
The numbers
| Rank | Card | English, since 1950 | English, 1840–1899 | British, since 1950 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Queen of Hearts | 77.0 | 148.3 | 121.9 |
| 2 | Queen of Spades | 72.4 | 26.3 | 230.6 |
| 3 | Ace of Spades | 59.1 | 54.8 | 91.5 |
| 4 | King of Hearts | 46.2 | 41.0 | 68.4 |
| 5 | Ace of Clubs | 34.0 | 33.5 | 128.8 |
| 6 | Ace of Hearts | 33.7 | 39.3 | 67.1 |
| 7 | Ace of Diamonds | 26.7 | 20.1 | 82.8 |
| 8 | King of Diamonds | 19.1 | 33.4 | 37.6 |
| 9 | King of Spades | 18.5 | 18.4 | 38.4 |
| 10 | King of Clubs | 18.4 | 26.6 | 46.6 |
| … | ||||
| 43 | Seven of Clubs | 2.9 | 3.2 | 5.0 |
| 44 | Five of Clubs | 2.9 | 9.0 | 4.2 |
| 45 | Five of Spades | 2.9 | 2.8 | 5.2 |
| 46 | Four of Spades | 2.9 | 2.1 | 5.1 |
| 47 | Five of Diamonds | 2.7 | 2.9 | 5.3 |
| 48 | Two of Diamonds | 2.6 | 1.8 | 6.4 |
| 49 | Eight of Diamonds | 2.5 | 3.8 | 5.5 |
| 50 | Six of Clubs | 2.5 | 1.6 | 4.3 |
| 51 | Four of Diamonds | 2.4 | 1.3 | 4.1 |
| 52 | Six of Diamonds | 2.2 | 1.9 | 4.1 |
The top 10 and bottom 10 of 52. Ranked by English books since 1950.
Download the chart as an image
Data: Google Books Ngram Viewer (data CC BY 3.0), case-insensitive: the English corpus for 1840-1899 and 1950-2019, the British English corpus for 1950-2019. Each figure is the phrase’s yearly share of all three-word phrases, per billion, averaged over the years. A mention is the phrase whatever it means, so titles and characters count: Pushkin’s story The Queen of Spades, and Tchaikovsky’s opera of it, inflate her count, and the Queen of Hearts is a character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Played as puzzles in Daily Shade.