Benjamin

606,324 people in America carry this name — ranked #69 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it BEHN juh muhn

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

B EH1 N JH AH0 M AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 606,324 2020 Census
  • Rank #69 Very common
  • Per 100,000 200.7 about 1 in 547 people
  • As a surname 39,477 ranked #855 the other way round

Where Benjamin comes from and what it means

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “son of the right hand”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Benjamin through the years

776,278 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1989, with 15,786 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80s 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1980s.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Benjamin

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Benjamin Brian — same opening
  • Benjamin Nathan — runs together
  • Benjamin Noah — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Is Benjamin a boy's or a girl's name?

99.9% men
744 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The same name abroad

  • Ben English
  • Benjie Scottish
  • Benjamino Italian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 73.9%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 13.6%
  • Two or more races — 3.9%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.6%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Where in America Benjamin is thickest on the ground

In New Hampshire the name is given 2.2 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Hampshire ×2.2
  • Vermont ×2.0
  • Maine ×2.0
  • Alaska ×1.6
  • Minnesota ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Spellings of Benjamin

Benjamin is how 84% of them spell it — 723,644 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Names with the same rhythm as Benjamin

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin