The surname Bentley
An English place surname, carried by 40,193 people in the United States.
Pronounced /ˈbɛntliː/ 2 syllables Soundex B534
Origin
English origin
From Old English Beonetlēah. Originally a Sussex habitational name, the word lēah or lēag meaning field in Old English. Hence, equivalent to bent (“bent-grass”) + -leigh/lea (“meadow, field”); compare Bentham.
Bentley is a place surname: taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
One of 1,446 English surnames on this site.
Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How common it is
2010 US Census
There were 40,193 people named Bentley in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 7,682 Americans. That is up 3.8% since 2000, when the Census counted 38,714.
Who is named Bentley
Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census
82% of people named Bentley identified as white (not Hispanic), 12% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.3% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
- White (not Hispanic) 82%
- Black (not Hispanic) 12%
- Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.3%
- Two or more races 1.9%
- Asian and Pacific Islander 0.5%
- American Indian and Alaska Native 0.5%
Spellings and sound-alikes
Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling
Variant spellings
- Bently
Surnames that sound like Bentley
Bentley has the Soundex code B534, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code B534.
Other English surnames
Questions
- Where does the surname Bentley come from?
- From Old English Beonetlēah. Originally a Sussex habitational name, the word lēah or lēag meaning field in Old English. Hence, equivalent to bent (“bent-grass”) + -leigh/lea (“meadow, field”); compare Bentham.
- How common is the surname Bentley?
- 40,193 people in the United States had the surname Bentley in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 7,682 Americans. It ranked 862nd of 162,253 surnames.
- What ethnicity is the surname Bentley?
- In the 2010 Census, 82% of people named Bentley identified as white (not Hispanic), and 12% as Black (not Hispanic).
- How do you pronounce Bentley?
- Bentley is /ˈbɛntliː/, 2 syllables.
- What type of surname is Bentley?
- Bentley is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
- Is the surname Bentley getting more or less common?
- More common. 38,714 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 40,193 in 2010, up 3.8%.
- What are other spellings of Bentley?
- Bently.