Benjamin
Masculine · “son of the right hand”
Benjamin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 826,830 boys against 2,482 girls since 1880. See Benjamin as a girl 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 was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Benjamin alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 721,000 people named Benjamin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Benjamin most popular?
Benjamin peaked in 2016, reaching #6 nationally. Today it ranks #11, 5 places below that high. See the whole 2016 chart.
Benjamin appears on these lists:
- Beloved classics quietly disappearing
- America's top 100 names right now
- The top-10 club: every name that made it
- Millennial names (born 1981–1996)
- Generation Z names (born 1997–2012)
- Generation Alpha names (born 2013 onward)
- all guides
Works in British families too:
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.
Cultural footprint
Benjamin Franklin (b. 1706) — Founding Father on the $100 bill — printer, inventor, diplomat
Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1804) — Twice British prime minister — and a bestselling novelist
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 198915,733 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #6reached in 2016
- Change vs 2022
- −10.5%9,762 in 2025, from 10,912
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Statistics Canada, Office for National Statistics. Sources
Benjamins among us
people named Benjamin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 175 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 Donald 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: Donald climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Donald's path sketches the road Benjamin is walking now.
Benjamin has held the top-100 across 11 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Benjamin is headed
Benjamin should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Benjamin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Benjamin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys 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.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Benjamin
Masculine · #11 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 721,000 people named Benjamin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Benjamin in 2025?
- Benjamin ranks #11 among US boy names in 2025, with 9,762 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Benjamin?
- About 1 in every 175 US boys born in 2025 was named Benjamin — 9,762 in all.
- Will my child share the name Benjamin with classmates?
- Roughly 1 in 7 classrooms will have a child named Benjamin.
Ranked beside Benjamin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lucas#10 · Levi#12 · Elias#13 · William#9 · Mateo#8 · Luca#14 · Elijah#7 · Jack#15
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Benjamin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Benjamin and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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