Benton

Benton is an English surname and place name commonly interpreted as a settlement or enclosure associated with bent grass. The ton ending belongs to old settlement vocabulary; it does not indicate the weight unit used in modern English. This geographical history distinguishes Benton from names built directly from a personal name followed by son.

Ben is an accessible short form, but Benton is not a traditional expansion of Benjamin and does not inherit Benjamin's Hebrew meaning. Its established use in nineteenth-century American records gives it a history as a first name as well as a surname. A family can choose it for an ancestral surname or landscape connection while retaining a familiar everyday nickname.