# Ben (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/ben/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | boys |
| Origin | not recorded |
| Meaning | not recorded |
| Pronunciation | /bɛn/, 1 syllable |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |
| US babies named this | 85,816 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 85,349 / 467 (1% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | 36,435, 1996 to 2025 |

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1954 | 6 | 5,194 |
| 1959 | 9 | 4,321 |
| 1960 | 6 | 5,755 |
| 1961 | 8 | 4,919 |
| 1962 | 7 | 5,338 |
| 1964 | 5 | 6,846 |
| 1965 | 5 | 6,612 |
| 1972 | 6 | 7,350 |
| 1973 | 5 | 8,536 |
| 1975 | 5 | 9,201 |
| 1978 | 5 | 9,903 |
| 1979 | 8 | 7,379 |
| 1980 | 5 | 10,544 |
| 1981 | 7 | 8,205 |
| 1982 | 7 | 8,315 |

### United States, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 344 | 687 |
| 2012 | 311 | 743 |
| 2013 | 310 | 746 |
| 2014 | 336 | 718 |
| 2015 | 331 | 736 |
| 2016 | 354 | 698 |
| 2017 | 327 | 732 |
| 2018 | 351 | 692 |
| 2019 | 339 | 720 |
| 2020 | 313 | 768 |
| 2021 | 327 | 765 |
| 2022 | 330 | 765 |
| 2023 | 311 | 797 |
| 2024 | 314 | 800 |
| 2025 | 292 | 843 |

### England and Wales, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 667 | 97 |
| 2012 | 536 | 118 |
| 2013 | 423 | 140 |
| 2014 | 364 | 156 |
| 2015 | 350 | 165 |
| 2016 | 272 | 206 |
| 2017 | 229 | 234 |
| 2018 | 182 | 274 |
| 2019 | 143 | 325 |
| 2020 | 141 | 327 |
| 2021 | 128 | 348 |
| 2022 | 114 | 371 |
| 2023 | 89 | 447 |
| 2024 | 77 | 509 |
| 2025 | 79 | 487 |

## People named Ben

- Ben Kingsley, English actor (born 1943)
- Ben Jonson, English playwright, poet, and actor (1572-1637)
- Ben Roy Mottelson, Danish-American nuclear physicist (1926–2022)
- Ben Whishaw, British actor and producer (born 1980)
- Ben Foster, English association football player (born 1983)
- Ben Chilwell, English association football player (born 1996)
- Ben Johnson, Canadian sprinter
- Ben Barnes, British actor and singer
- Ben Foster, American actor
- Ben Johnson, American film actor (1918–1996)
- Ben Stein, American actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist
- Ben Mendelsohn, Australian actor

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.