Benny

Where Benny comes from

Benny hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1882
    First appearance
    #943 among boys, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1939
    Peak, #172
    864 babies named Benny — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1946
    Benny Andersson born
    Swedish musician and composer
  4. 1967
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #373.
  5. 1985
    Benny Feilhaber born
    American soccer player
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Benny Andersson · Swedish musician and composer, born 1946
  • Benny Feilhaber · American soccer player, born 1985
  • Benny Golson · American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger, 1929–2024
  • Benny Hinn · American-Canadian evangelist, born 1952
  • Benny Morris · Israeli historian, born 1948

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.