Benjamin

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Benjamin boys named Benjamin

By the numbers

Total US births

829,312

Estimated living today

719,000

Median age today

27

Peak year

1989

Best rank

29th

Rank in 2025

11th

First recorded

1880

Girls / boys

2,482 / 826,830

How old the living Benjamins are

born that year still alive today

Of the 829,312 babies given the name since 1880, about 719,000 are alive — 87 in every hundred. Roughly 224,000 of them are children and 28,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1998 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 Hebrew

From Latin Benjamin, from Ancient Greek Βενιαμίν, from Biblical Hebrew בִּנְיָמִין. Authorities differ on the meaning of the original Hebrew. Philo of Alexandria, the Samaritan Pentateuch The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and Midrash Leḳaḥ-Ṭob understand יָמִין to mean "days" (a meaning attested in Daniel 12:13) understanding the name to mean "son of days (i.e.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Benjamins

• Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)American polymath and statesman
• Benjamin Netanyahu (born 1949)Prime Minister of Israel (born 1949), (1996–1999; 2009–2021; 2022–present)
• Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)British statesman
• Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)President of the United States, 1889-1893
• Benjamin Constant (1767–1830)French-Swiss politician, writer on politics and religion
• Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)English composer, conductor, and pianist
• Benjamin Pavard (born 1996)French footballer
• Benjamin Spock (1903–1998)American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

People named Benjamin with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Benjamin is most common

• CA80,560
• NY52,409
• TX51,669
• PA41,197
• OH36,593
• IL34,827
• FL30,871
• MI29,828
• MA25,153
• GA24,916

Relative to how many babies each state records, Benjamin is most concentrated in New Hampshire (2.0×), Alaska (2.0×), Utah (1.6×), Maine (1.6×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1989

The most popular boys’ names the year Benjamin peaked:

• Michael
• Christopher
• Matthew
• Joshua
• David
• Daniel

All the names of 1989

Benjamin elsewhere

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.

Benjamin: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Benjamin is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.36% of children were given it – 372 of them.

Benjamin: rank by region

In 2025, Benjamin was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.

In 2019, Benjamin was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Benjamin was given 2 times or more in 13 regions of Poland.

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Benjamin appears in the lists for Province of Walloon Brabant (64th), Brussels-Capital Region (130th), Province of Flemish Brabant (177th) and Province of Antwerp (251st).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 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.

Benjamin by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Benjamin 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.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Benjamin lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 15,420 men called Benjamin were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 51 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 1 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

• Ben
• Bennett
• Bentley
• Bennie
• Benny
• Benito
• Benson
• Benita
• Benedict
• Benton
• Bentlee
• Benicio

Benjamin against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Benjamin vs Ben
• Benjamin vs Bennett
• Benjamin vs Bentley
• Benjamin vs Bennie
• Benjamin vs Benny
• Benjamin vs Benito

Compare Benjamin with a name of your own