Baby name Benjamin

Description: A biblical name borne by the youngest of the twelve sons of Jacob. His mother Rachel died in giving birth to him, and in her last moments she named him Benoni, meaning ‘son of my sorrow’. His father, however, did not wish him to bear such an ill-omened name, and renamed him Benyamin. This means either ‘son of the right hand’ or more likely ‘son of the south’, since Benjamin was the only child of Jacob born in Canaan and not in Mesopotamia to the north. Another tradition is that the second element of the name is a variant of the Hebrew plural noun ‘yamim, which means ‘days’ but is used idiomatically to mean ‘year’ or ‘years’. The name would then mean ‘son of my old age’ and refer to the fact that Benjamin was Jacob’s youngest kid. In the middle ages the name was often given to young boys whose mothers had passed away during childbirth. Today it has lost this morbid association and rose in popularity along with the release of move The Graduate, in which Dustin Hoffman played the role of Benjamin Braddock. Famous bearers include Ben Stiller and Ben Affleck (actors), Benjamin Franklin (founding father of USA) and Ben Sherman (designer).