Tobin
Masculine · “the Lord is good”
Tobin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 5,570 boys against 167 girls since 1880.
Tobin has two histories that met in Ireland: a Norman family name from a French saint's town, and a diminutive of the biblical Tobias. Irish records carry both, and by now they are one name.
How old is the name Tobin?
Tobin first appears in US birth records in 1941 — 84 years ago. The typical Tobin alive today was born around 1996, making them about 29 years old. About 5,200 people named Tobin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tobin most popular?
Tobin peaked in 1971, reaching #719 nationally. Today it ranks #3181, 2,462 places below that high. See the whole 1971 chart.
Where it comes from
From Toviyah to Tobin
The story of Tobin
Norman lords took their names from their home places, and St Aubin in Brittany gave one such family the name that Irish speakers reshaped as Tóibín — the Tobins of Tipperary and Kilkenny. Independently, English and Irish speakers had long clipped Tobias to Toby and extended it as Tobin. The surname is the better documented of the two and the given name is recent, part of the American habit of taking short Irish surnames into front position.
Meaningscholars disagree
the Lord is good, or of St Aubin
One line is Hebrew: Toviyah, the Lord is good, gives Tobias and its short forms, of which Tobin is one. The other is Norman: families named de St Aubin settled in Ireland after the twelfth century and their name was gaelicised as Tóibín.
How the name formed
- Toviyah
- Tobias
- Tobin
Related forms: Tóibín · Toby · Toviyah
Pronouncing Tobin
TOH-bin
Two syllables, first stressed. There is little variation.
Nicknames for Tobin
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
- 1941
- Most boys named
- 2014154 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #719reached in 1971
- Change vs 2023
- −27.5%37 in 2025, from 51
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.
Tobin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tóibín in Irish — related form
- Toby in English — related form
- Toviyah in Hebrew — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Ohio.
Tobins among us
people named Tobin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 46,164 born in 2025 was named Tobin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tobin
- #3181
- Tobin on the 2025 chart
- #886
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tobin went to 37 boys in 2025, but Tobyn is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 42, which makes it the 886th most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,295 places above the chart.
- Tobin37
- Tobyn5
About 1 boy in 40,668 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 46,164 for Tobin itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Derald test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tobin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Derald climbed just as high around 1929, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Derald's path sketches the road Tobin is walking now.
Tobin 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
Where Tobin is headed
Tobin is easing off slowly — about 22% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Tobin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tobin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two documented histories, one Hebrew and one Norman, both real.
- Five letters and two syllables, easy to write and impossible to mispronounce.
- Toby is a warm short form with centuries of English use.
- It reads as a surname to people meeting it in front of another one.
- Tobin, Toben and Tobyn all appear, so the spelling will be asked for.
- The two possible meanings mean the question of origin has a fork in it.
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What they receive
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Tobin
Masculine · #3181 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tobins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,200 people named Tobin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tobin?
- Tobin is the most-used spelling in US records — 37 of the 42 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Tobyn.
- How popular is the name Tobin in 2025?
- Tobin ranks #3181 among US boy names in 2025, with 37 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tobin?
- About 1 in every 46,164 US boys born in 2025 was named Tobin — 37 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tobin with classmates?
- Tobin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tobin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Diamond#3181 · Walden#3181 · Keion#3181 · Artem#3181 · Arsh#3181 · Kris#3181 · Daren#3181 · Esau#3181
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tobin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tobin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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