Bethany is from the Aramaic Beit Anya ("house of figs" or "house of poverty") — the New Testament village outside Jerusalem where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived (John 11). Bethany Hamilton (born 1990) — American professional surfer; at age 13 in October 2003, lost her left arm in a tiger-shark attack off Kauai while paddling out — and was back on a surfboard within one month, returning to competition within 16 months; world junior amateur title 2005, professional career launched 2007. Her 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer was adapted into a 2011 film starring AnnaSophia Robb, with Hamilton consulting on Robb's surfing scenes.
Bethany does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Bethany reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.