Toby
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the male personal name Toby, the English form of Tobias
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/toʊbi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Toby is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 2.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 3.5K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.8K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 505 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈150,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the male personal name Toby, the English form of Tobias.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Toby, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Toby 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.6K | — | Toby | 39 |
| US United States | #952 | 34,007 | 1 in 9.8K | 28K | Toby | 505 |
| GB United Kingdom | #424 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | 621 | Toby | 326 |
| AU Australia | #522 | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 97 | Toby | 220 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Toby | 54 |
| HK Hong Kong | #189 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Toby | 60 |
| LA Laos | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | — | Toby | 7 |
| NZ New Zealand | #338 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | 53 | Toby | 114 |
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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Toby is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Hebrew for “God is good”; English form of the name, also used to anglicise Tiobdid and Tadhg.
as a nameIrish first names
English vernacular form of Tobias. . 237
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A drinking mug, in the shape of a human head with a hat atop; a Toby jug.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Tocai [Tokay]
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, wine
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Toby Keithb. 1961USAmerican country music singer and actor (1961–2024)
- Toby Emmerichb. 1963USAmerican film producer
- Toby Hussb. 1966USAmerican actor
- Toby Stephensb. 1969GBBritish actor
- Toby Schmitzb. 1977AUAustralian actor and playwright
- Toby Leonard Mooreb. 1981AUAustralian actor
- Toby Kebbellb. 1982GBBritish actor
- Toby Hemingwayb. 1983GBBritish actor
- Toby Alderweireldb. 1989BEBelgian association football player (born 1989)
- Toby Foxb. 1991USAmerican video game designer and composer (born 1991)
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 77 sources across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 28K | #1,160 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 5.8K | #1,160 |
| GB United Kingdom | ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024) | 2024 | 621 | #86 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 234 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 101 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2019 | 97 | #93 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2019 | 97 | #93 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2021 | 75 | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2019 | 71 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 53 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 26 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2017 | 24 | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 are other forms of the name Toby?
- In the etymology graph, Tobias, Topi and Tovia are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Toby a male or female name?
- Toby is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Toby?
- In the United States, the national register counted 34,007 people named Toby in 2020, about 1 in 9.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Toby compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Toby is the 189th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Toby have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 145 thousand people named Toby in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled toby.
- What does the name Toby mean, and where does it come from?
- from the male personal name Toby, the English form of Tobias. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Toby?
- A machine transcription gives /toʊbi/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Toby?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tobyThe 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), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
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, “Toby” — the 189th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.