 If his name represents Benholm, then he may have come from an English or Anglo-Norman family recently settled in the Mearns (i.e.Kincardineshire), as the name is linguistically English, unusual in settlement names for the area in this period; the other possibility is that the name "Benholm" is an anglicized corruption of a Gaelic name in "Beinn", a possibility strengthened by the spellings "Benne" and "Benin" found in the cartulary of Arbroath Abbey.He may have been related to the Christiana Benin who married into the Lundie family of Fife.