Bennett
- Pronunciation
- [Be-nnett]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Variant Of Benedict.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Bennett
Bennett is the medieval English form of Benedict, descending from the Latin Benedictus meaning "blessed." The contracted form Bennett emerged in medieval English vernacular and was used both as a personal name and as a surname continuously since at least the 12th century. The name's Christian anchor is Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–547), the founder of Western monasticism whose Rule of Saint Benedict became the foundational document of medieval European monastic life and of the Benedictine Order.
While the longer form Benedict has been used continuously in English, the contracted Bennett shifted increasingly toward surname-only use during the post-medieval period. The Bennett surname produces several notable bearers: Mr. Bennett, the patriarch of the Bennett family in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813); American singer Tony Bennett (1926–2023, born Anthony Dominick Benedetto, the legendary American crooner whose career spanned over seventy years); and many others.
Bennett's transition back to first-name use in American naming is essentially a 21st-century phenomenon, part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Theodore and Henry. The name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the top 75 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 100 since. The appeal is its layered medieval-English register combined with two firm syllables, hard consonants, and tonal versatility from preppy-modern to vintage-elegant. The name reads as dignified without being heavy. Common nicknames Ben and Benny are shared with Benjamin and Benedict (the name family is overlapping); Bennie is a regional Southern American variant. The longer formal Benedict is sometimes used as Bennett's official-document version. International forms include Benedict (English/German), Benoît (French), Benedetto (Italian), Benito (Spanish), and Bento (Portuguese).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Bennett
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Bennett by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 6,268 boys named Bennett (boy rank #40 that year).
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Bennett Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Bennett the strongest states are Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minnesota | #27 | 1,349 |
| 2 | Iowa | #28 | 756 |
| 3 | North Dakota | #37 | 220 |
| 4 | South Dakota | #38 | 215 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #38 | 1,152 |
| 6 | Nebraska | #44 | 400 |
| 7 | Missouri | #46 | 1,187 |
| 8 | Idaho | #47 | 360 |
| 9 | Kansas | #52 | 604 |
| 10 | Utah | #54 | 683 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | #254 | 58 |
| 2 | Nevada | #182 | 182 |
| 3 | California | #182 | 2,243 |
| 4 | Texas | #169 | 2,327 |
| 5 | Florida | #168 | 1,322 |
| 6 | West Virginia | #166 | 128 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #163 | 568 |
| 8 | Hawaii | #161 | 48 |
| 9 | New York | #161 | 1,218 |
| 10 | Mississippi | #136 | 246 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Bennett in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Bennett?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Bennett to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Bennett against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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