Tesla still got a bunch of scientific cred, more than Edison actually. Edison is known as the inventor of a consumer product, Tesla got the unit of magnetic flux named after him.

Actually, the comic names Lorentz, Minkowski, Hilbert, which aren't household names like Einstein, but anyone who knows anything about relativity will still know their names and what they contributed. Who cares about being known as "some kinda smart feller" by a billion people if none of them actually know why you're seen as smart. To them you're about as significant as a character in a newspaper comic; an easy reference to make to show they've read a newspaper once.