View Message

Well of course you've seen it as a surname. The surname is based on the medieval given name. People didn't have hereditary surnames in early medieval England; these only gradually developed over the course of several centuries as what had been "by-names" became hereditary. Bennett is one of the forms of Benedict that were in use in medieval England, and one of the main reasons we know this is precisely because there are so many people who have Bennett as a surname, indicating that they had a male ancestor back in medieval Britain whose given name was Bennett.