Behn
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: from the German male personal name Behn, a shortened form of Bernhard
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈbɛn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Behn is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- AUAustralia
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the German male personal name Behn, a shortened form of Bernhard
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Behn is read(measured from records)
Behn is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English66%
from the German male personal name Behn, a shortened form of Bernhard
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- German21%
Patronymic from Benno; forms with e, eh, ee and diphthongized Be(i/y)n; 1802 bearer count.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Familienname zu Kurzformen wie Bernhard/Benno; die Karte zeigt die e/eh/ee-Varianten.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
from Bär II; also from Böhm
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Aphra Behnb. 1640GBBritish playwright, poet and spy (1640–1689)
- Sosthenes Behnb. 1882USAmerican businessman; founder of International Telephone & Telegraph (1882–1957)
- Harry Behnb. 1898USAmerican screenplay writer and children's author (1898–1973)
- Sarla Behnb. 1901GBEnglish Gandhian social activist
- Noel Behnb. 1928USAmerican writer (1928–1998)
- Peter Behnb. 1934USAmerican actor
- Ari Behnb. 1972NONorwegian author (1972–2019)
- Maud Angelica Behnb. 2003NOeldest child of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and Ari Behn
- Leah Behnb. 2005NOsecond child of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and Ari Behn
- Emma Tallulah Behnb. 2008NONorwegian show jumper, youngest child of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and Ari Behn
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 11 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Behn mean, and where does it come from?
- from the German male personal name Behn, a shortened form of Bernhard Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Behn?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈbɛn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Behn have the most bearers?
- Behn is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Behn?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/behnThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Behn”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.