Meaning and background
The story behind Benjamin
Benjamin has a long Biblical history: the Hebrew name Binyamin can mean “son of the right hand” or “son of the south”, depending on the sense of yamin. In Genesis, Benjamin is the youngest son of Jacob and Rachel. Both readings belong in an honest explanation; collapsing the name into a single modern slogan would lose the ambiguity of the Hebrew.
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About Benjamin
Recorded as a dog’s name
Benjamin appears in 51 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/bɛndʒəmən/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/bɛndʒəmən/ · primary stress on syllable 1B EH1 N JH AH0 M AH0 N
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
Gender association: NYC licence-period records. Any dog can use this name.
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.