What these three columns mean
- Most common proper noun — Divine names (LORD, Lord, God, GOD, and similar) plus personal and place names identified by capitalisation heuristics in the KJV text. Counts include mid-sentence capitals and verse-initial names that rarely appear in lowercase.
- Most common content word — The most frequent non-stop word in the book after proper-noun types are removed, so this column is not merely a repeat of column one. Stop words include articles, pronouns, common auxiliaries (including KJV forms such as hast, hath, doth, shalt), and high-frequency speech verbs (said, saith, spake, unto, and similar).
- Unique words — Word types (case-folded) that occur in exactly one of the 66 books. The top unique word is the exclusive type with the highest frequency in that book, which is often a name or a specialised term.
Figures are computed from BibleAV’s KJV 1769 text. Tokenisation keeps letter sequences and internal apostrophes (for example, Lord’s). Different stop lists or name detectors will change the rankings slightly; the tables below are reproducible from the published text.
Quick observations
- LORD is the most common proper noun in 25 books, mostly in the Old Testament.
- Jesus is the most common proper noun in 4 New Testament books (Matthew, Mark, John, and Philemon in this count).
- 1 Chronicles has the most book-exclusive vocabulary (507 types), led by Laadan (7 times).
- 2 John has the fewest exclusive types (1), with top unique word biddeth.
- Narrative books often surface people or places as top uniques (for example, Rebekah in Genesis, Silas in Acts), while legal or poetic books more often surface specialised vocabulary (scall, twined, sluggard, bottomless).
Old Testament
Counts in parentheses are raw occurrences in that book’s KJV text.
| Book | Most common proper noun | Most common content word | Unique word types | Top unique word |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis | God (227) | land (187) | 232 | Rebekah (28) |
| Exodus | LORD (389) | people (174) | 123 | twined (21) |
| Leviticus | LORD (307) | offering (249) | 71 | scall (14) |
| Numbers | LORD (387) | children (263) | 209 | spoon (12) |
| Deuteronomy | LORD (546) | land (187) | 96 | roebuck (4) |
| Joshua | LORD (220) | children (191) | 214 | Makkedah (9) |
| Judges | Israel (184) | children (131) | 107 | Gideon (39) |
| Ruth | Naomi (20) | law (19) | 24 | Naomi (20) |
| 1 Samuel | LORD (309) | men (114) | 105 | Hannah (13) |
| 2 Samuel | David (268) | king (251) | 116 | Ziba (16) |
| 1 Kings | LORD (256) | king (264) | 103 | navy (6) |
| 2 Kings | LORD (276) | king (303) | 85 | Jehoash (17) |
| 1 Chronicles | David (181) | son (324) | 507 | Laadan (7) |
| 2 Chronicles | LORD (385) | king (227) | 83 | Oded (3) |
| Ezra | God (97) | children (113) | 87 | Tatnai (4) |
| Nehemiah | God (74) | son (117) | 132 | Sanballat (10) |
| Esther | Mordecai (56) | king (127) | 59 | Esther (53) |
| Job | God (114) | man (91) | 152 | Temanite (6) |
| Psalms | LORD (715) | praise (158) | 188 | overwhelmed (7) |
| Proverbs | LORD (86) | man (157) | 120 | sluggard (6) |
| Ecclesiastes | God (41) | man (54) | 22 | happeneth (6) |
| Song of Solomon | Jerusalem (8) | beloved (31) | 23 | spouse (6) |
| Isaiah | LORD (421) | people (138) | 242 | meted (3) |
| Jeremiah | LORD (695) | land (202) | 162 | Kareah (13) |
| Lamentations | LORD (30) | daughter (20) | 25 | swoon (1) |
| Ezekiel | Lord (221) | house (163) | 165 | arches (15) |
| Daniel | Daniel (75) | kingdom (56) | 73 | nego (15) |
| Hosea | LORD (45) | children (18) | 22 | Hosea (3) |
| Joel | LORD (32) | people (14) | 10 | fats (2) |
| Amos | LORD (60) | house (24) | 18 | plumbline (4) |
| Obadiah | Esau (7) | day (12) | 2 | Sepharad (1) |
| Jonah | LORD (26) | sea (11) | 7 | gourd (5) |
| Micah | LORD (37) | people (19) | 15 | chop (1) |
| Nahum | LORD (13) | strong (5) | 19 | revengeth (2) |
| Habakkuk | LORD (12) | people (7) | 15 | drag (2) |
| Zephaniah | LORD (29) | day (21) | 14 | gnaw (1) |
| Haggai | LORD (31) | hosts (14) | 2 | earneth (2) |
| Zechariah | LORD (131) | hosts (53) | 17 | Azal (1) |
| Malachi | LORD (47) | hosts (24) | 10 | voweth (1) |
New Testament
Counts in parentheses are raw occurrences in that book’s KJV text.
| Book | Most common proper noun | Most common content word | Unique word types | Top unique word |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew | Jesus (169) | heaven (76) | 79 | tares (8) |
| Mark | Jesus (97) | man (88) | 44 | Eloi (2) |
| Luke | God (124) | things (99) | 143 | Elisabeth (8) |
| John | Jesus (255) | man (125) | 62 | Nathanael (6) |
| Acts | God (170) | man (90) | 300 | Silas (13) |
| Romans | God (163) | law (78) | 108 | graffed (5) |
| 1 Corinthians | God (103) | man (78) | 78 | earthy (4) |
| 2 Corinthians | God (74) | things (32) | 59 | perils (8) |
| Galatians | Christ (39) | law (32) | 21 | freewoman (3) |
| Ephesians | Christ (45) | love (14) | 22 | predestinated (2) |
| Philippians | Christ (37) | things (28) | 16 | furtherance (2) |
| Colossians | Christ (26) | things (19) | 26 | beguile (2) |
| 1 Thessalonians | God (39) | brethren (17) | 8 | work's (1) |
| 2 Thessalonians | Lord (21) | brethren (7) | 7 | disorderly (3) |
| 1 Timothy | God (22) | good (23) | 41 | purity (2) |
| 2 Timothy | Lord (17) | faith (8) | 37 | Onesiphorus (2) |
| Titus | God (12) | things (11) | 15 | uses (1) |
| Philemon | Jesus (7) | brother (4) | 6 | oweth (1) |
| Hebrews | God (72) | things (42) | 62 | Melchisedec (9) |
| James | God (17) | man (25) | 23 | tamed (2) |
| 1 Peter | God (39) | glory (12) | 21 | adorning (2) |
| 2 Peter | Lord (15) | things (13) | 14 | Bosor (1) |
| 1 John | God (64) | love (33) | 6 | assure (1) |
| 2 John | God (4) | love (4) | 1 | biddeth (1) |
| 3 John | Beloved (3) | truth (6) | 4 | malicious (1) |
| Jude | Lord (7) | ungodly (6) | 6 | Jude (1) |
| Revelation | God (99) | heaven (56) | 63 | bottomless (7) |
How the counts were made
Letter sequences with optional internal apostrophe (e.g. Lord's).
Divine names (LORD, Lord, God, GOD, etc.) plus capitalized non-stop tokens. Mid-sentence capitals count fully; verse-initial capitals count when the word is rarely or never lowercase in that book (typical of personal and place names).
Most frequent non-stop word after excluding that book's proper-noun types, so the column is distinct from the proper-noun result. The stop list covers function words, pronouns, auxiliaries (including KJV forms such as hast, hath, doth, shalt), and high-frequency speech verbs (said, saith, spake, unto, etc.).
Case-folded word types that occur in exactly one of the 66 KJV books. The top unique word is the exclusive type with the highest frequency in that book (names included).
Source corpus: kjv-1769, version 1. Chapter text is the same public-domain KJV used throughout BibleAV’s reader.