Hoby

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Hoby is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Main GB Location (1881): Brecknocks. see Hobby .

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 2.4M(measured from records)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 2.5M

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

141 people, 2020

Sources
91 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 2.4M (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Main GB Location (1881): Brecknocks. see Hobby .

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Hoby counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Hoby is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States1411 in 2.4M141—1
NL Netherlands71 in 2.5M7——
FR France———Hoby91
CH Switzerland——35—4
DK Denmark——22——

141 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Hoby is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, Philippines, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Höby, Höbý

31 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1400160018002000Philip Hoby, b. 1505Thomas Hoby, b. 1530Edward Hoby, b. 1560Thomas Hoby, b. 1642George Hoby, b. 1820Gottfried Hoby, b. 1915Jean-Pierre Hoby, b. 1945

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 12 sources across 7 countries.

Official registers attesting Hoby
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020141#46,856
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)195830—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)195915—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)196213—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)196111—
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—7#35,090
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)—7#22,158
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19606—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19905—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19635—

Reference works 3

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)

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 Hoby mean, and where does it come from?
Main GB Location (1881): Brecknocks. see Hobby . Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland.
Is Hoby a male or female name?
Hoby is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
In which country does Hoby have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 141 people named Hoby, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Hoby most common?
Hoby is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 2.4 million people carrying it.
How common is the name Hoby?
In the United States, the national register counted 141 people named Hoby in 2020, about 1 in 2.4 million residents.

What do you want to know about Hoby?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hoby

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Hoby”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Hoby parses inside a full name →