Gender: Masculine
Origin: Hebrew
Meaning: “Yahweh is good.”
Eng (toh-BYE-us)
The name is a Greek form of the Hebrew male name, Toviyyah טוֹבִיָּה, which appears in the Old Testament as the name of an Ammonite. It is borne by several other minor characters in the Old Testament. In earlier versions of the New Testament, it is the name of Tobit in the Book of Tobit.
The name gained popularity in England after the Reformation and is often shortened to Toby. It is currently the 2nd most popular male name in Austria and his rankings in other countries are as follows:
- # 11 (Norway, 2010)
- # 20 (Denmark, 2010)
- # 95 (Netherlands, 2010)
- # 519 (United States, 2010)
Other forms of the name include:
- Tobias (Dutch/English/German/Scandinavian)
- Tobiáš (Czech)
- Topias (Finnish)
- Topi (Finnish)
- Tobie (French)
- Tuvya טוּבִיָה (Hebrew)
- Tóbiás (Hungarian)
- Tobia (Italian)
- Tobasz (Polish)
- Tobiasz (Polish)
- Tobijasz (Polish)
- Tovija Товия (Russian)
- Tovij Товий (Russian)
- Tevye (Yiddish)