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The surname Bentley

An English place surname, carried by 40,193 people in the United States.

Pronounced /ˈbɛntliː/ 2 syllables Soundex B534

Bentley: #862 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#10,001Dubon Bentley #862, 40,193 people Bentley: #862 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Bentley #862, 40,193 people
Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Bentley is more common than 99.5% of them.

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.

#862
rank among US surnames
40,193
people in 2010
14
per 100,000 Americans
+3.8%
change since 2000 (was #814)
RankSurnamePeople1 in
#853Donovan40,4107,640
#854Mays40,4087,641
#855Mahoney40,3977,643
#856Valentine40,3957,643
#857Raymond40,2757,666
#858Medrano40,2617,669
#859Hahn40,2507,671

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%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

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.