I've been compiling a list of famous cats for some time now. I know which my favorites are, but I wondered which are the most famous overall. There are so many great famous cats that I'm doing this in four groups, and then I'll do a final round with the top cats from those groups.

The most famous cats with names starting with the letter A to G are:

10. Eureka, from Wizard of Oz books

9. Chester, from Cheetos commercials

8. Elsa, from the Born Free movies

7. Felix the Cat, from the Felix the Cat cartoons

6. Miss Kitty Fantastico, from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series

5. Hobbes, from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip

4. Dewey, from the book "Dewey, The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World"

3. Garfield, from the Garfield comic strip

2. Figaro, from the animated movie Pinocchio

...and the most famous cat on this list is...

1. The Cheshire Cat, from Alice in Wonderland.

Cats not ranking in the top 10 were Am - from Lady and The Tramp, Heathcliff - from the Heathcliff comic strip, Crookshanks - from Harry Potter Books and Movies, Duchess - the movie Babe, Greebo - Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, Bill - from the Bloom County cartoon, Calvin - Harriet Beecher Stowe's cat, Carbonel - from Carbonel King of the Cats, Grimalkin - Nostradamus' cat, Bucky - from the Get Fuzzy comic strip, Catarina - Edgar Allan Poe's cat, Guilty - from Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Bomb, and Foss - Edward Lear's cat.

So cats from books (The Cheshire Cat, Dewey, Eureka) did quite well, while cats owned by authors (Calvin, Catarina, Foss) did not. Probably not a big surprise.

I compiled this list by searching for the names listed on a number of search engines and ranking them by the number of web pages, discussion forums, photos, videos, etc that are available online.