Benny
An English name barely present in Poland: only about 70 men carry it, so most Poles have never met one. It comes from Hebrew, where it reads as "son of the right hand".
Benny Pronunciation
Benny is pronounced BEN-nih (/ˈbɛnnɨ/).
What Benny means
Where Benny comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Benny grew up in the shadow of a longer name. It began as a familiar form of Benjamin, the Hebrew Binyamin, which reads as "son of the right hand." In Genesis, Jacob gave that name to his youngest son. The right hand meant strength and favour, the side of blessing. The sense passed into English intact: son of the right hand, syn prawicy.
English speakers took to Benny early and let it stand alone. Benny Goodman, the Chicago clarinetist who led the swing bands of the 1930s, put the name on record labels around the world. The comedian Benny Hill did the same for a later television audience in Britain. Both are easy enough to check.
It sounds warm and quick. Three letters of Benjamin, and a name is made.
On a Polish class register, Benny still reads as borrowed, English before Hebrew. The older root sits underneath, the son of the right hand.
How many people are named Benny
1 in 296475 men in Poland is named Benny. 72 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4222 among male names.
Benny as a middle name
Benny is a first name for 72 men in Poland and a middle name for another 21, a 77/23 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1912th, between Bagus (21) and Bikram (21).
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#1910 Auguste21
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#1911 Bagus21
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#1912 Benny21
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#1913 Bikram21
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#1914 Brendon21