Bennett · Daily fortune

Bennett is the medieval English form of Benedict, and so carries Benedict's meaning, "blessed". Behind the Name explains that this was the more common spelling in England until the 18th century, and that modern use of the name is probably also influenced by the common surname Bennett, which is itself a derivative of the medieval given name. Wikipedia describes Bennett as the English spelling of the Anglo-Norman name Ben(n)et, corresponding to the modern French first name Benoît, and records the surname from 1208 in County Durham. In the United States in 2025 it ranked #40 for boys and #912 for girls; Behind the Name lists it as masculine, and the girls' rank is the reason it is marked unisex here.

The two sources agree. Behind the Name gives: "Medieval form of Benedict. This was the more common spelling in England until the 18th century." Wikipedia states that Bennett "is the English spelling of the Anglo-Norman name Ben[n]et (modern French first name Benoît, surname Bénet)", that it is related to the medieval name Benedict, and that it means "blessed". Behind the Name lists Benedictus as the Ancient Roman form among the name's relatives, which is the Latin source of Benedict. The path is therefore Latin Benedictus → Anglo-Norman Ben(n)et → English Bennett, with the surname Bennett arising from the medieval given name and, in Behind the Name's view, probably feeding the name's modern revival as a first name.

Bennett's story runs in two phases. In the first, it was simply how English speakers wrote and said Benedict: Behind the Name says it was the more common spelling in England until the 18th century, after which the Latin-shaped Benedict took over as the given name. Wikipedia fills in the surname side: the oldest documented use it cites is from 1208 in County Durham in North East England, the name appears in Perthshire, Scotland, in the 13th century, and Ireland has its own forms, Beinéid in South Leinster and MacBennett in Ulster. Wikipedia also notes that the spelling Bennet is more common in Scotland while Bennett dominates along the Anglo-Scottish border. In the second phase the surname carried the name back into first-name use: Behind the Name says modern use "is probably also influenced by the common surname Bennett, itself a derivative of the medieval name". Wikipedia still describes Bennett as primarily a surname and "less commonly" a given name, but the SSA data tells a different story for the United States, where it ranked #40 for boys in 2025.

In the United States in 2025, Bennett ranked #40 among boys' names and #912 among girls' names (Social Security Administration). The boys' figure places it well inside the top 50; the girls' figure is small but enough to put the name on both national lists, which is why this profile marks it unisex even though Behind the Name labels it masculine and Wikipedia calls it primarily a surname and less commonly a given name. Neither source gives historical rank data for the given name.

English Bennett is /ˈbɛn.ɪt/, BEN-it, two syllables with the stress on the first. Because Bennett is a form of Benedict, the foreign forms Behind the Name lists are those of Benedict rather than of Bennett itself; the ones below are taken from that list, and their pronunciations were not verified in this pass. Hungarian Benett is the closest match to the English spelling.

Bennett reads as a surname name, and that is how most American parents meet it: two crisp syllables, a familiar nickname in Ben, and a polished, slightly preppy finish that puts it alongside Beckett, Everett and Emmett. What sets it apart is that the surname is a mask over a much older first name; a child called Bennett is, historically, a Benedict in the spelling England used for five centuries. Parents who like the sound of the modern surname group but want a name with real medieval depth and a saint's-name meaning behind it tend to find Bennett the best of both.

Wikipedia's article covers the name as both given name and surname. The given-name bearers below are the ones it names; a few surname bearers are included because the surname is, per Behind the Name, the main reason the first name is in use today.

Names that share Bennett's polished surname style, its Benedict lineage, or its two-syllable, t-ending sound. This list is editorial.