Disclaimer: The following post is based on personal experience and likes/dislikes. So expect it to be heavily biased and if I ignore many protagonists worthy of recognition and did not mention them, it might be merely because I have not encountered them. Read the whole piece with a pinch, nay, buckets full of salt.
The old bard Shakespeare in his play 'The Twelfth Night' wrote, "Some people are born great; Some achieve greatness; And some people have greatness thrust upon them." I cannot agree more to this definition of greatness. Using it as the barometer to define greatness I mentally scanned through my list of favorite heroes and finally decided on my personal top 3 viz- Batman, Aragorn and Harry Potter.
Karna, Sherlock Holmes, General Maximus Decimus Meridius, Rama, Hector were some names I thought of, but decided to go with the fore-mentioned three.
On Achieving Greatness: Batman achieves greatness by overcoming his fear of darkness and being the savior of Gotham City. He constantly battles numerous types of different criminals preying on his fears, but he regularly defeats them, inspite of his vow not to kill anyone.
Aragorn leads the free folk of Middle Earth to freedom from the evil clutches of Sauron and becomes the first king of the re-united kingdom of Arnor of the north and Gondor of the south after over 2000 years. Even though he is a mortal, he is even considered worthy of marrying an Elf, an Elven Princess for that matter.
Harry Potter destroys The Dark Lord and establishes peace in the magical society. He does this while facing his inner demons and huge backlash from the very people he intended to save from the evil lord. he is even bestowed with Godric Griffindor's sword for god's sake!!
In short: All of the three have achieved greatness. That is why they are your heroes, figures you would look up to for inspiration.
On Being Born Great: Now if we talk of Batman, was he born great? He was surely born into a rich family, a family which dominated Gotham and sought it's well being. But was born great? I doubt that. As a terrified kid he forced his parents to leave the theatre and witness them getting mugged and shit while he did nothing. Well, it would be unreasonable to expect more from him, but the fore-mentioned actions don't warrant of a man born great.
Aragorn is the only direct descendant of the Numenor, the last great men of the west having half elven blood. A prophecy destines him to be great. Taught by Elrond the great elf of Rivendell himself, he was indeed born great.
Harry Potter was born a direct descendant of Godric Griffindor (founder of the house Griffindor which personifies heroism), born to great magicians James and Lily and with Sirius as godfather there is no doubt that he was born great. (J.K. Rowling intentionally plays down this aspect). Also, the prophecy by prof. Trelawney made sure he was indeed born great.
In short: Harry Potter and Aragorn were born great.
On Greatness Thrust Upon Then: Batman 'merely' achieves greatness. He does not undergo any experience where one could say he has greatness thrusted upon him.
Aragorn also does not have greatness thrusted on him. Had he been the one to carry the burden of the one ring and go on the quest to destroy it in the cracks on Mt. Doom, he would have qualified for the critieria, but that role passes to Frodo.
Unlike the above two, Harry Potter has greatness thrusted upon him the moment Voldemort unintentionally makes him a horocrux and dies when he intended to kill him. That moment made Harry Potter the 1 year old kid, savior of the wizarding community. His special connection with Voldemort ensured that even though he may not be born great, or achieve greatness, he will have greatness forever thrusted upon him for that single act by Voldemort. The prophecy of Trelawney could have been applied to either Neville or Harry, but on choosing Harry to be the chosen one, the one to destroy him, he directly thrusts greatness on Harry.
In short: Harry Potter is the only one of the three heroes in question to have greatness thrusted upon him.
That is why Harry Potter was, is and will be my favorite hero of all time.
PS: Another hero I would love to add is Karna. Son of Surya Deva himself, he was born great. He achieves greatness when in spite of being self-taught, he turns out to as skilled as Arjuna. Greatness is thrusted upon him by a cruel twist of fate when on being abandoned by his mother Kunti, he joins forces with the opposition camp of his brothers and chooses to be loyal to the Kauravs in spite of knowing the truth about his lineage.
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