Benedict
16,229 people in the United States were counted with the surname Benedict in the 2020 census, making it the 2,181st most common in the country. That is about one person in 18,400.
By the numbers
- People
- 16,229
- Rank
- 2,181st
- How common
- 1 in 18,400
- Per 100,000
- 5.4
Where the name comes from
Origin a patronymic
From Saint Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order, from Latin Benedictus, from benedictus (“blessed, well spoken of”), from Latin benedīcō (“to bless, to speak well of”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Benedict described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Benedict
- Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)American anthropologist and folklorologist
- Dirk Benedict (born 1945)American actor
- Rob Benedict (born 1970)American actor
- Jay Benedict (1951–2020)American actor
- Julius Benedict (1804–1885)German-born composer and conductor
- Richard Benedict (1920–1984)American actor
- Paul Benedict (1938–2008)American actor
- Paul K. Benedict (1912–1997)American anthropologist, mental health professional, and linguist
People named Benedict with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Benedict
Also a first name
Benedict has been given to 10,475 American babies as a first name since 1882, peaking in 2025. See it as a given name.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.