Benson

82,707 people in the United States were counted with the surname Benson in the 2020 census, making it the 378th most common in the country. That is about one person in 3,614.

By the numbers

People: 82,707
Rank: 378th
How common: 1 in 3,614
Per 100,000: 27.7

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

Ultimately from Old English Benesingtūn.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Benson described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 75.1%
Black, not Hispanic 15.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.9%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Benson

Ashley Benson (born 1989)American actress
George Benson (born 1943)American guitarist and singer
Amber Benson (born 1977)American actress
Owusu Benson (born 1977)Ghanaian association football player
Jodi Benson (born 1961)American actress
Robby Benson (born 1956)American actor and director
Breanne Benson (born 1984)Albanian-American pornographic actress
Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994)President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

People named Benson with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Benson

Also a first name

Benson has been given to 14,344 American babies as a first name since 1887, 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.