Tobiah
Masculine · “the Lord is good”
Tobiah is Hebrew for the Lord is good, and the book named for it contains a dog, a fish and an archangel traveling together.
How old is the name Tobiah?
Tobiah first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Tobiah alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 700 people named Tobiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tobiah most popular?
Tobiah peaked in 1977, reaching #2665 nationally. Today it ranks #4707, 2,042 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Toviyah to Tobiah
The story of Tobiah
The Book of Tobit sends young Tobias on a journey with a companion who turns out to be the archangel Raphael, and a dog that follows them the whole way and is mentioned twice for no clear reason — one of the few pets in scripture. A fish's organs cure his father's blindness. The book is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles and outside the Jewish and Protestant canons.
Meaning
the Lord is good
From Hebrew tov, good, and yah, a shortened form of the divine name; the compound is a complete sentence. Tobias is the Greek form and Toby the English short one.
How the name formed
- Toviyah
- Tobias
- Tobiah
Related forms: Toviyah · Tobias · Tobias
Pronouncing Tobiah
toh-BY-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Hebrew gives toh-vee-YAH.
Nicknames for Tobiah
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1971
- Most boys named
- 201639 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2665reached in 1977
- Change vs 2024
- +40.0%21 in 2025, from 15
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Tobiah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Toviyah in Hebrew — same name
- Tobias in English — related form
- Tobias in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Tobiahs among us
people named Tobiah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 81,337 born in 2025 was named Tobiah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Felder test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tobiah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Felder climbed just as high around 1919, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Felder's path sketches the road Tobiah is walking now.
Tobiah sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Tobiah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tobiah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning that forms a complete sentence.
- Toby is an established short form with a very long record.
- A genuinely charming story attached to the fuller name.
- Tobias is far more familiar and will be offered as a correction.
- The book is not in every Bible, so the story is unevenly known.
- The English and Hebrew pronunciations differ substantially.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Tobiah
Masculine · #4707 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tobiahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Tobiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tobiah in 2025?
- Tobiah ranks #4707 among US boy names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tobiah?
- About 1 in every 81,337 US boys born in 2025 was named Tobiah — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tobiah with classmates?
- Tobiah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tobiah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ole#4707 · Shelton#4707 · Constantino#4707 · Adel#4707 · Cord#4707 · Zalman#4707 · Montez#4707 · Homer#4707
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tobiah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tobiah and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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