Benson
Masculine · “Son of Benn”
Benson is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 14,312 boys against 32 girls since 1880.
Benson began as an English surname meaning simply "Benn's son" — Benn being the everyday medieval short form of Benedict, the name of monks and abbots. It has also been a village in Oxfordshire since Anglo-Saxon times. Two syllables, both easy, with Ben sitting inside it ready to be used.
How old is the name Benson?
Benson first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Benson is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 13,000 people named Benson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Benson most popular?
Benson peaked in 2025, reaching #279 nationally. Today it ranks #279, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Benson appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Benedictus to Benson
The story of Benson
Surnames arrived in England in the centuries after the Norman Conquest, and one common recipe was a father's name plus -son. Benn was the working, spoken form of Benedictus — a name carried into England by the Benedictine monasteries — so Benson joined Bennett, Benn and Benson's northern cousins as one of the family names built on it. A quieter set of Bensons took the name from the village in Oxfordshire, spelled Bensington in Anglo-Saxon documents. Both kinds crossed the Atlantic with English migration, and by the nineteenth century Benson was a settled American surname long before it began to be handed to sons as a first name.
Meaningscholars disagree
"Son of Benn" — Benn being a medieval pet form of Benedict, itself Latin for "blessed"
Most English families carrying Benson trace it to the patronymic reading: son of Benn, a short form of Benedict, though in some records Benn stands in for Benjamin instead. A separate line of Bensons took the name from the Oxfordshire village of Benson, recorded earlier as Bensington, an Old English settlement name. Both routes are documented; which one a given family followed depends on the family.
How the name formed
- Benedictus
- Benedict
- Benn
- Benson
Related forms: Bennett · Benn · Benedetto · Benoît · Benedikt
Pronouncing Benson
BEN-sun
Stress on the first syllable. Nobody in English-speaking countries hesitates over it, and the spelling gives the sound away on sight.
Nicknames for Benson
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
- 1887
- Most boys named
- 20251,214 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #279reached in 2025
- Change vs 2022
- +183.6%1,214 in 2025, from 428
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.
Benson in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bennett in English — related form
- Benn in English — related form
- Benedetto in Italian — related form
- Benoît in French — related form
- Benedikt in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Utah, California, Ohio.
Bensons among us
people named Benson are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,407 born in 2025 was named Benson
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 Maynard test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Benson's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maynard climbed just as high around 1922, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maynard's path sketches the road Benson is walking now.
Benson is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Benson is headed
Benson should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Benson beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Benson in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelling and pronunciation are both self-evident to English speakers — no repeating it, no correcting it.
- Comes with Ben already built in, one of the most durable short forms in English.
- Documented in England as both a surname and a place name since the Middle Ages, so the record behind it is long and real.
- Familiar to every American ear as a surname while remaining uncommon as a first name — recognizable without being crowded.
- Its rise as a given name is recent and still climbing, so it reads as current rather than revived.
- It still functions mainly as a surname in American life — most often a last name in the news, on rosters and on television characters. Some people will hear it as "Benson comma" before they hear it as a first name.
- Sound-alike surname names are having a long moment, so expect occasional mix-ups with Benton, Bennett and Jensen.
- The short form Ben belongs to Benjamin too, which is very well represented. A Benson who goes by Ben may not be the only Ben in the class, even though he will almost certainly be the only Benson.
- In the UK and Ireland, Benson & Hedges is a familiar cigarette brand — worth knowing, though it rarely comes up in American conversation.
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What they receive
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Benson
Masculine · #279 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bensons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 13,000 people named Benson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Benson in 2025?
- Benson ranks #279 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,214 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Benson?
- About 1 in every 1,407 US boys born in 2025 was named Benson — 1,214 in all.
- Will my child share the name Benson with classmates?
- Benson will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Benson
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Maximiliano#280 · Shiloh#278 · Atticus#281 · Otto#277 · Jensen#282 · Tobias#283 · Maximus#275 · Bodie#275
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Benson? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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