Benhur
An Arabic masculine name meaning "son of a lion".
Name Census estimates that about 8 living Americans carry the first name Benhur. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Benhur today is around 16 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Benhur births was 2010 (8 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Benhur. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Benhur with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Benhur. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
8
~ 1 in 42,844,292 Americans
Peak year
2010
8 babies that year
Average age
16
years old
2010 SSA rank
#8,899
Tracked since 2010
Census
Benhur in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 266 people with the first name Benhur, which placed it at #31,950 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#31,950
National first-name rank
People counted
266
266 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
50.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Benhur
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Benhur is Asian/Pacific Islander at 50.0%. The next largest groups are Black (18.8%) and Hispanic (16.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Benhur described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Benhur at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander50.0% · 133
- Black or African American18.8% · 50
- Hispanic or Latino16.9% · 45
- White11.3% · 30
- Two or more races3.0% · 8
Popularity
Benhur: popularity over time
Babies born per year
Decades
Benhur by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Benhur during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010s | 8 | 0 | 8 |
Origin
Meaning and history of Benhur
The name Benhur has its roots in the ancient Aramaic language, which was widely spoken in the Middle East during the first millennium BC. It is believed to be a compound word derived from the Aramaic words "ben" meaning "son" and "hur" meaning "white" or "noble". Therefore, the name Benhur can be loosely translated as "son of the noble" or "noble son".
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Benhur can be found in the ancient Hebrew text of the Book of Esther, which is part of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In this text, Benhur is mentioned as a servant of King Ahasuerus, who ruled the Persian Empire in the 5th century BC.
The name gained widespread recognition and popularity in the 19th century, thanks to the novel "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" by Lew Wallace, published in 1880. The book's protagonist, Judah Ben-Hur, was a fictional Jewish prince who lived during the time of Jesus Christ. The novel was a significant literary work and was later adapted into a highly successful silent film in 1925, starring Ramon Novarro as Judah Ben-Hur.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Benhur. One of the earliest was Benhur ben Yehuda, a Jewish scholar and poet who lived in Spain during the 11th century. Another was Benhur Laskarin, a Turkish-Jewish philosopher and physician who lived in the 15th century and served as the court physician to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.
In more recent times, Benhur Olmedo Rendón was a Colombian lawyer and politician who served as the Mayor of Bogotá from 1970 to 1972. Benhur Tonu Baksh was a Guyanese cricketer who played for the West Indies national team in the 1960s and 1970s.
Perhaps the most famous modern bearer of the name was Benhur Avrichir, an Israeli actor and film director who was born in 1932 and passed away in 2018. He was best known for his roles in several successful Israeli films and television shows, and for his contributions to the Israeli entertainment industry spanning over six decades.
People
Benhur + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Benhur as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Benhur: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Benhur?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 8 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Benhur going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 42,844,292 US residents.
Is Benhur a common name?
We classify Benhur as "Very Rare". It ranks above 24.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 8 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Benhur most popular?
The single biggest year for Benhur was 2010, when 8 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Benhur is about 16 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Benhur in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 266 people with the name Benhur, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #31,950 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Benhur in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Benhur?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Benhur appears almost entirely male. Of the 268 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Benhur?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Benhur is Asian/Pacific Islander at 50.0%. The next largest groups are Black (18.8%) and Hispanic (16.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Benhur most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Benhur in the 2020 Census, accounting for 50.0% (133 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Benhur in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Benhur a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Benhur in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Benhur still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Benhur in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Benhur can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Benhur?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.