Benita
Benita is a girl's name that peaked in 1961, when it was the 445th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 8,860th. About 10,000 Benitas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 61.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Benita
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 13,669
- Estimated living today
- 10,000
- Median age today
- 61
- Peak year
- 1961
- Best rank
- 445th
- Rank in 2025
- 8,860th
- First recorded
- 1889
How old the living Benitas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 13,669 babies given the name since 1889, about 10,000 are alive — 73 in every hundred. Roughly 260 of them are children and 3,700 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1964 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Spanish
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Benitas
- Benita Ferrero-Waldner (born 1948)Austrian diplomat and politician
- Benita Fitzgerald-Brown (born 1961)American hurdler
- Benita Hume (1906–1967)British actress
- Benita Johnson (born 1979)Australian distance runner
- Benita Asas (1873–1968)Spanish teacher, journalist, and suffragist
People named Benita with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Benita is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Benita is most concentrated in Texas (2.9×), Alabama (2.4×), the District of Columbia (2.4×), Kentucky (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1961
The most popular girls’ names the year Benita peaked:
Benita elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Benita | 213 | 1,991st |
| France girls | Benita | 180 | 1,163rd |
| Poland girls | Benita | 15 birth registrations | 308th |
| Belgium girls | Benita | 10 | 1,234th |
| Ireland girls | Benita | 7 | 758th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Benita: rank by region
In 2009, Benita was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Benita | 867 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Benita by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 548th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Benita among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Benita | 658 | 1,260 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Benita lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 6,744 women called Benita were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ourense | Benita | 349 | 2.200 | 96 |
| Zamora | Benita | 79 | 0.945 | 185 |
| Cáceres | Benita | 142 | 0.725 | 241 |
| Ávila | Benita | 57 | 0.713 | 219 |
| Ciudad Real | Benita | 177 | 0.710 | 223 |
| Palencia | Benita | 56 | 0.701 | 227 |
Listed in 50 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 2 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Benita against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.