Benson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) person from Benson, Oxfordshire; (ii) son of Benne, or son of Bien, a Jewish pet-form of Benjamin
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɛnsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Benson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Antigua & Barbuda it is the 22nd most common surname.
- GHGhana≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 2.8K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.3K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 530 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈310,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
(i) person from Benson, Oxfordshire; (ii) son of Benne, or son of Bien, a Jewish pet-form of Benjamin.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Benson counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈310,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | — | Benson | 33 |
| US United States | #311 | 86,081 | 1 in 3.9K | 86K | Benson | 530 |
| NG Nigeria | #337 | ≈76,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Benson | 95 |
| GB United Kingdom | #304 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | 3 | Benson | 269 |
| GH Ghana | #115 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Benson | 56 |
| IS Iceland | #507 | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | 1 | Benson | 10 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #22 | — | — | — | Benson | 3 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Benson is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, (i) son of Benn (Bennet); first attested John Benneson, Adam Bensome 1326 Wak (Yorkshire). (ii) from Benson or Bensington (Oxfordshire); first attested Peter de Bensinton 1208 Cur (Oxfordshire)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Transferred use of the surname, which originated in part as a patronymic from Ben/(n), a short form of Benedict, and in part as a local name from Benson (formerly Bensington) in Oxfordshire.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, An English habitational surname from Old English from a place in Oxfordshire.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, (i) John Benneson, Adam Bensome 1326 Wak (Y); Alan Benson 1332 SRCu; John Benesson 1393 FrY. ‘Son of Benn (Bennet)’. (ii) Peter de Bensinton 1208 Cur (O); Henry de Benson 1269 Oseney (O). From Benson or Bensington (Oxon).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In Irish, Τhis English name is fairly numerous in Belfast and Dublin. See Benison
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- E. F. Bensonb. 1867GBEnglish novelist and writer (1867–1940)
- Sally Bensonb. 1897USAmerican writer (1897-1972)
- George Bensonb. 1943USAmerican guitarist and singer (born 1943)
- Jodi Bensonb. 1961USAmerican actress
- Vickie Guerrerob. 1968USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestling manager
- Ned Bensonb. 1977USfilm director
- Amber Bensonb. 1977USAmerican actress
- Julia Bensonb. 1979CACanadian actress
- Justin Bensonb. 1983USAmerican film director
- Ashley Bensonb. 1989USAmerican actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 81 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 86K | #365 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 84K | #332 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 83K | #378 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Benson mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) person from Benson, Oxfordshire; (ii) son of Benne, or son of Bien, a Jewish pet-form of Benjamin. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Benson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 86,081 people named Benson in 2010, about 1 in 3.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Benson compared with other names?
- In Antigua & Barbuda, Benson is the 22nd most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.
- In which country does Benson have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 306 thousand people named Benson in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled benson.
- How do you pronounce Benson?
- A machine transcription gives /bɛnsən/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Benson?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bensonThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Benson” — the 22nd most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.