Benjamen vs Bentley
American parents have registered 63,562 Bentleys since 1880, against 3,687 Benjamens. Bentley is still ahead, with 1,795 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Benjamen Bentley
Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.
Who was ahead
Of the 121 years in which either name was published, Benjamen for 61 years and Bentley for 60 years. The lead changed hands 25 times.
- 1884–1922 Benjamen ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 1923–1926 Bentley ahead
- 1934–1936 Benjamen ahead
- 1937–1943 Bentley ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1948–1955 Benjamen ahead
- 1958–1967 Bentley ahead
- 1971–1998 Benjamen ahead
- 1999–2025 Bentley ahead
15 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Benjamen | Bentley | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 3,687 | 63,562 |
| Most in one year | 99 | 6,143 |
| Babies in 2025 | 7 | 1,795 |
| Estimated living today | 3,100 | 63,000 |
| Median age today | 35 | 10 |
| Peak year | 1990 | 2012 |
| Best rank | 1,065th boys | 75th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 9,714th | 215th |
| First recorded | 1884 | 1890 |
| Girls / boys | 0 / 3,687 | 3,535 / 60,027 |
A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.
Which name is older
Half of the Benjamens alive today are over 35; half the Bentleys are over 10. That is 25 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Benjamen Ohio (2.7×), Indiana (2.5×), Iowa (2.3×)
- Bentley Utah (2.5×), Idaho (2.2×), Kentucky (2.1×)
How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.
Both names abroad
Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.
| Country | Benjamen | Bentley |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | 80 | 1,706 |
| Ireland | 3 | 15 |
Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.
Compare something else
Related comparisons
Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Benjamen and Bentley.