The top 100 most prolific characters in all of Trek

[Ryan8bit]

I created a program that compiled all dialog from chakoteya.net. This includes all the series, including TAS, and all of the movies except for Into Darkness. I couldn't seem to find a good source for that with quote attributions, so if anybody has one, I'll try and add it in. I went by word count because lines could range from "Aye, sir" to a speech about gazelles.

These figures are going to be approximate because there are typos in these transcripts. I was able to get most of the ones that involved the main cast, but that doesn't eliminate typos in dialog. Nevertheless, this is likely to be fairly close to the actual counts.

There are a few exceptions where I did or didn't count certain characters. When a character had a double and it is counted (Kirk in "The Enemy Within" or Picard in "Time Squared"), but when the actor played a different character, even on the holodeck, it does not count (not just something like Picard playing Dixon Hill). The most notable one of these might be in "Far Beyond the Stars" where none of those characters are counted, even Benny.

Also, it includes recaps that were written in, and moments from the ever so wonderful "Shades of Gray." So a few characters might have some redundant dialog.

Lastly, it does not count the songs sung by Vic Fontaine, since the transcriber did not want to enter those in. So it's likely that Vic would be a little higher on this list.

Without further ado, the list:

01. Jean Luc Picard: 179,381
02. Kathryn Janeway: 149,054
03. James T. Kirk: 148,410
04. Benjamin Sisko: 110,785
05. Jonathan Archer: 97,540
06. Data: 92,827
07. Spock: 84,090
08. William Riker: 82,257
09. EMH: 79,006
10. Julian Bashir: 67,242
11. Kira Nerys: 65,103
12. Miles O'Brien: 64,693
13. Chakotay: 64,084
14. Geordi La Forge: 63,326
15. Worf: 62,610
16. Quark: 61,161
17. Odo: 57,840
18. Charles "Trip" Tucker III: 52,601
19. Tuvok: 52,774
20. Tom Paris: 51,524
21. B'Elanna Torres: 47,238
22. Beverly Crusher: 46,243
23. Harry Kim: 46,189
24. Jadzia Dax: 45,732
25. Seven of Nine: 44,076
26. T'Pol: 42,486
27. Deanna Troi: 42,125
28. Leonard McCoy: 42,065
29. Neelix: 41,727
30. Phlox: 28,696
31. Malcolm Reed: 27,298
32. Elim Garak: 24,407
33. Montgomery Scott: 22,819
34. Dukat: 21,424
35. Jake Sisko: 17,659
36. Hoshi Sato: 15,830
37. Q: 15,341
38. Wesley Crusher: 14,990
39. Nog: 13,755
40. Rom: 13,469
41. Kes: 13,644
42. Computer (various): 13,402
43. Travis Mayweather: 11,853
44. Ezri Dax: 11,515
45. Reginald Barclay: 11,379
46. Nyota Uhura: 11,180
47. Hikaru Sulu: 10,751
48. Weyoun: 9,621
49. Lwaxana Troi: 9,311
50. Winn Adami: 8,013
51. Martok: 7,644
52. Katherine Pulaski: 6,984
53. Guinan: 6,629
54. Keiko O'Brien/Ishikawa: 6,566
55. Pavel Chekov: 6,487
56. Tasha Yar: 5,852
57. Shran: 5,577
58. Grand Nagus Zek: 5,400
59. Damar: 5,264
60. Michael Eddington: 5,240
61. Vic Fontaine: 5,093
62. Seska: 4,842
63. Kor: 4,666
64. Ro Laren: 4,655
65. Kasidy Yates: 4,342
66. Luther Sloan: 4,333
67. Noonian Soong: 4,315
68. Christopher Pike: 4,233
69. Degra: 3,891
70. Bareil Antos: 3,809
71. Soval: 3,797
72. Gowron: 3,627
73. Female Changeling: 3,596
74. Joseph Sisko: 3,476
75. Harry Mudd: 3,196
76. Borg Queen: 3,133
77. Alexander Rozhenko: 3,109
78. Bill Ross: 3,077
79. Lewis Zimmerman: 3,057
80. Brunt: 2,991
81. Icheb: 2,943
82. Vash: 2,844
83. Ishka: 2,760
84. Daniels: 2,694
85. Mora Pol: 2,666
86. Naomi Wildman: 2,613
87. Maxwell Forrest: 2,596
88. Sarek: 2,551
89. Thomas Riker: 2,531
90. Kurn: 2,453
91. Christine Chapel: 2,438
92. James Moriarty: 2,316
93. Quinn: 2,315
94. Lore: 2,308
95. Edward Jellico: 2,298
96. Michael Sullivan: 2,234
97. Enabran Tain: 2,167
98. K'Ehleyr: 2,134
99. Trelane: 2,000
100. Tora Ziyal: 1,949

It's no surprise that Picard is #1 given the amount of speeches he gives. Janeway seemed to follow Picard's shoes in more ways than one, while Sisko was somewhat quiet in comparison. Kirk would likely beat Janeway if Into Darkness was counted. And Archer still managed to beat supporting characters of other shows.

I'm somewhat surprised that Worf wasn't a little higher given how many seasons and movies he appeared in, but he always was a man of few words.

I also found it funny that Neelix and Phlox were right next to each other (despite a pretty different word count). And Rom and Nog... like father like son, I guess!

Garak has the distinction of having the most lines for only being a guest star. He even has more than Scotty, although that would likely change with the introduction of STID.

I might run some more stats with this database I built. There's probably more fun little factoids that can be drawn from it.

 

[BillJ]

Pretty impressive for Kirk and Spock to be so high considering they had the fewest amount of episodes.

 

[Kirby]

That's a neat list. I think it's funny that Travis Mayweather was on ENT for four years, and just barely has more than Ezri Dax, who was on DS9 for only one season.

 

[Melakon]

BillJ, the tallies are including TAS and movie appearances.

What's really impressive is Quinn and Trelane, since both only appeared in single episodes.

Though the thread title initially had me thinking this was going to be about how many children were produced. "Most verbose" characters might have been a better choice.

 

[Cyke101]

Sulu clocks in at 47, which proves that George Takei is the answer to the Trek universe.

I'm slightly disappointed that Sulu's that low, but numbers are numbers. And what little Hikaru said, he made it count. The speech against Khan in Into Darkness had great conviction. "Don't call me shorty." And who could forget...

Sulu: Target that explosion and fire.
*pew pew pew!*
*KABOOM!*
Sulu: Oh my!

 

[Ryan8bit]

"Most verbose" characters might have been a better choice.

I thought about it, but verbose to me implies people who talk too much or use lots of unnecessary words.

And yeah, I was surprised by Kirk and Spock too, but they just didn't have to share as much time with other cast. This is probably why Sisko isn't as high up considering the amount of recurring characters on that show. Plus, yeah, there's several movies for them and the animated series, which pads it considerably.

The interesting part about the original gang is that the characters seem to go about 2x less than the next. For instance,

James T. Kirk: 148,410
Spock: 84,090
Leonard McCoy: 42,065
Montgomery Scott: 22,819
Nyota Uhura: 11,180
Hikaru Sulu: 10,751
Pavel Chekov: 6,487

Uhura and Sulu are the only ones who seem to share evenly.

Sulu clocks in at 47, which proves that George Takei is the answer to the Trek universe.

I lol'd.

 

[bbjeg]

Riker's doppelganger beat Data's. Neat list.

 

[sojourner]

How did the Enterprise series finale get counted, since it's mostly a hologram except for Troy and Riker?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Q's placement is also pretty impressive considering he appeared in 13 episodes and he beat some of the series regulars.

 

[Ryan8bit]

How did the Enterprise series finale get counted, since it's mostly a hologram except for Troy and Riker?

Holograms of existing people as who they are supposed to be were counted towards the total. So Leah Brahms (not in the top 100) and her hologram (in both episodes) was included as one.

 

[Push The Button]

Do Pike's lines get counted twice for both The Cage and The Menagerie?

This is a fascinating analysis, well done!

 

[Ryan8bit]

Yep. Anything that was ever repeated got counted in the totals. Pike would likely be higher with STID included as well.

 

[Atticus]

I love this list! Great job

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Of the series that went seven seasons:

TNG had 26 characters that appeared in at least two episodes,
DS9 had 36 characters,
and VOY had 19.

I'm sure I am missing some here and there, but I think it's indicative of character development and interaction of each series.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Out of curiosity, where did Cullah come in?

 

[CaptPapa]

Very impressive work, thank you.

A question or two . . . since you counted the two (ooops, one) new movies' alternate universe dialog, did you count the dialog from Mirror, Mirror? And if so, I guess both our universe's characters and the mirror universe's characters would count towards their respective totals.
Also, who's dialog counted as Kirk in Turnabout Intruder? Did you follow Kirk's being when it was inside Lester, or count Kirk's physical being throughout that episode?
Kinda fun subject, actually.
And proof-positive that one can always find something useful to do with one's time!

ME

 

[Ryan8bit]

Out of curiosity, where did Cullah come in?

He was down near 170. I don't have specifics for characters beyond the low 100s.

 

[Ryan8bit]

A question or two . . . since you counted the two (ooops, one) new movies' alternate universe dialog, did you count the dialog from Mirror, Mirror? And if so, I guess both our universe's characters and the mirror universe's characters would count towards their respective totals.
Also, who's dialog counted as Kirk in Turnabout Intruder? Did you follow Kirk's being when it was inside Lester, or count Kirk's physical being throughout that episode?
Kinda fun subject, actually.

The mirror stuff was a little bit tricky. I think by nature, some of them were included because it was limited by how the transcripts were written. For instance, in DS9's "Crossover," the mirror Garak is simply referred to as GARAK, with no hint of being alternate. However, alternate Kira is listed as INTENDANT, so those lines weren't counted (which I should possibly amend, as it would likely put her above Bashir). I do believe I counted a lot of the KIRK2 and SPOCK2 under the main character's totals.

I did do a fair amount of scouring to make sure that common names weren't duplicates, but I didn't check every single episode that had the possibility of alternates or body possession, just the ones I could think of off the top of my head for the most popular characters. So I definitely caught both Kirks from "The Enemy Within," but it looks like in "Turnabout intruder" the dialog was just attributed to the body in question. This probably is the case for most other episodes of bodily possession, with the exception of Voyager's "Vis a Vis" where it was noted who Steth was portraying, in which case those were not counted.

These kinds of variables are why the list isn't any kind of absolute, but just a general picture. I wasn't intending to comb through every episode and possibility, but just to create a program that could quickly sift through it all to help give that picture.

 

[WillsBabe]

What a great thing! This is so interesting Thanks for doing it.

 

[bbjeg]

I can't figure how Mayweather is above Sulu and Chekov. Besides "Aye Captain" and "Yes sir", I barely remember him saying much of anything.