Benjamin
Feminine · “son of the right hand”
Benjamin is given to boys far more often — 826,830 boys against 2,482 girls since 1880. See Benjamin as a boy name
Rachel died giving birth to him, and with her last breath she named him Ben-Oni, son of my sorrow. His father would not let it stand. Jacob called him Binyamin instead — son of the right hand — and that is the name three thousand years have carried.
How old is the name Benjamin?
Benjamin first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Benjamin alive today was born around 1983, making them about 42 years old. About 2,200 people named Benjamin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Benjamin most popular?
Benjamin peaked in 1983, reaching #1278 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,639 places below that high. See the whole 1983 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ben-Oni to Benjamin
The story of Benjamin
Benjamin was the last of Jacob's twelve sons and the only one born in Canaan rather than in exile, and the story of his naming is unusually raw for Genesis: a mother naming her child out of her own dying, and a father overruling her within the same verse. The tribe that took his name was the smallest of the twelve, and its territory lay on the border where Jerusalem stands. The name passed into Greek and Latin without alteration, and into ordinary English use at the Reformation, when Protestant families began taking names from the Hebrew scriptures instead of from the calendar of saints. One consequence of the birth story outlived the story itself: in French, le benjamin is still the everyday word for the youngest child in a family.
Meaning
son of the right hand
Hebrew ben yamin. Yamin is the right hand, and because someone facing the sunrise has the south on their right, it is also the ordinary word for the south. Both readings are standard and neither excludes the other: the right hand is the side of strength and favor, and the tribe's land lay south of its neighbors. It replaced Ben-Oni, son of my sorrow, at the moment of birth.
How the name formed
- Ben-Oni
- Binyamin
- Beniamin
- Benjamin
Related forms: Binyamin · Benjamin · Beniamino · Benjamim · Veniamin · Binyamin
Pronouncing Benjamin
BEN-juh-min
Three syllables, stress on the first. The Hebrew Binyamin puts the weight at the far end, bin-yah-MEEN, and keeps the y as a consonant. French says it with a nasal ending and no audible n at all.
Nicknames for Benjamin
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 198396 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1278reached in 1983
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%8 in 2025, from 8
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Benjamin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Binyamin in Hebrew — same name
- Benjamin in Spanish — same name
- Beniamino in Italian — same name
- Benjamim in Portuguese — same name
- Veniamin in Russian — same name
- Binyamin in Arabic — transliteration
Benjamins among us
people named Benjamin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Benjamin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Carolin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Benjamin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carolin climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carolin's path sketches the road Benjamin is walking now.
Benjamin sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Benjamin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Benjamin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three thousand years of continuous use with no gap anywhere in the record.
- Four short forms at four different temperatures, from formal to affectionate.
- Recognized without translation in Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Russian.
- A settled meaning attached to a story a child can actually be told.
- Ben is what most people will settle on, so choose the full name only if the short one suits you too.
- Ben is also shared with Bennett, Benedict and Benson, so it identifies nothing on its own.
- In American slang, Benjamins are hundred-dollar bills, after the face on the note.
- The very few girls given this spelling will be read as boys on every form they ever fill in.
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What they receive
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Benjamin
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Benjamins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Benjamin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Benjamin in 2025?
- Benjamin ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Benjamin?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Benjamin — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Benjamin with classmates?
- Benjamin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Benjamin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Benjamin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Benjamin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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