An English Patronymic name from the name Bennet, which means 'blessed' � a popular name during the middle ages. It has variations in several languages, and spellings.

Bennett/Bennet - A variation of the name Benedick from Latin meaning Blessed

BENNETT (British). (Latin) "Blessed, from Benedict".
BENEDICT (British). "Blessed" (Latin), often through the saint.

Derived from the Christian name Benet, an early English form of the Old-French Benoit, Latin Benedictus. The earliest instances of it in Ireland are spelt Benet. Families of the name were established before 1250 in the barony of Moygoish (Westmeath) and in south Tipperary. They appeared as priests, officials, landowners and felons; a Nicholas Benett was hanged in 1295. The existence in 1312 of a place called Bennetstreet in Co. Kilkenny indicates that they were already of some importance there; and Bennettsbridge is a well known small Co. Kilkenny town. Another Bennetsbridge is found near Athy Co. Kildare. Other place-names formed from this surname are Bennettsmeadow (near Callan, Co. Kilkenny), Bennetstown (Dunboyne, Co Meath), Bennettstown (near Wexford), Bennettsknock (New Ross), Bennettsgate and Bennettslands (at Youghal). Later records show them to have been even more widespread. In 1486 Thomas Benet was bailiff of the city of Dyvelyn (Dublin). John Benet was Bishop of Cork and Cloyne from 1523 to 1536 and Benets or Bennetts appeared in a number of sixteenth century Fiants relating to Co. Cork. Prof. Edward Halloran Bennet (1837-1907), president of the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, was the son of Robert Bennett, Recorder of Cork. A succession of Bennetts were sovereigns of New Ross from 1589 to 1632. Later in the seventeenth century we find the name, as MacBennett as well as Bennett frequently in Co. Armagh. Art Bennett (fl. 1825) the poet-satirist, was an Armagh man. Another Gaelic poet, William Bennett (fl. 1760) lived in Co. Clare but was born in Co. Kerry. He was known as Buine�n in Irish rather than the normal gaelicized form Bin�id. Buine�n is actually a gaelicization of Bunyan or Bunion, the name of an English family settled in Co. Kerry, whose association there is perpetuated in the placename Ballybunion, called by the Four Masters Bade an Bhuinneanaigh. Nearly all these Bunion families have now become Bennett, but Binane and Banane were found by Matheson as synonyms of Bunyan in the neighbourhood of Castlegregory and Tralee. Banane is an occasional synonym of Bannon (q.v). One of the attainted Jacobites was William Banane of Loughmore, Co. Tipperary.