(FORTUNE Magazine) – Keeping Up herewith proudly inaugurates an annual list of the ten most notorious businesspersons of the year. Our operative definition of ''notorious'' is the first one supplied by Webster's New World Dictionary: ''well-known; publicly discussed.'' In ranking the well-knownness of contemporary businesspersons, we have naturally turned to the mighty Nexis database. The figures after each name represent the number of 1991 articles and news stories residing in this database and discovered to be mentioning the individual. The top ten:

1. Robert Maxwell -- 5,833 2. Donald Trump -- 3,526 3. Lee Iacocca -- 2,117 4. Rupert Murdoch -- 2,063 5. Michael Milken -- 2,001 6. Ted Turner -- 1,792 7. Carl Icahn -- 1,556 8. Clark Clifford -- 1,348 9. Warren Buffett -- 1,340 10. Kevin Maxwell -- 1,017

Keeping Up makes no warranty as to the probity, solvency, or sanity of any individuals included on the list above. All we claim is that a sizable majority of them were still alive at year-end.