Tobias
A masculine name of Hebrew origin related to the term "goodness".
Name Census estimates that about 26,945 living Americans carry the first name Tobias. It sits at #280 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Tobias today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Tobias births was 2016 (1,523 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Tobias. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Tobias with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
27K
~ 1 in 12,721 Americans
Peak year
2016
1,523 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#280
Tracked since 1880
Census
Tobias in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 20,557 people with the first name Tobias, which placed it at #1,574 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,574
National first-name rank
People counted
21K
20,557 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
6.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Tobias
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tobias is White at 58.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (17.3%) and Black (14.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Tobias described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Tobias at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.1% · 11,945
- Hispanic or Latino17.3% · 3,564
- Black or African American14.0% · 2,887
- Two or more races7.1% · 1,450
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 502
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 209
Popularity
Tobias: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Tobias from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 9,404 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Tobias remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Tobias by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Tobias during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Tobias' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Tobias, while Rhode Island, Wyoming, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 487 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Tobias
The name Tobias is of Hebrew origin, derived from the biblical name Tobiah, meaning "God is good" or "the goodness of God." It first appeared in the Book of Tobit, an apocryphal Jewish work written around the 3rd century BC.
The earliest recorded use of the name Tobias dates back to the 2nd century BC, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish texts discovered in the Qumran Caves near the Dead Sea. It was a relatively popular name among Jews during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
One of the earliest known individuals with the name Tobias was Tobias ben Eliezer, a Jewish scholar who lived in the 2nd century AD and is mentioned in the Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism.
In the Christian tradition, Tobias is also the name of one of the seven archangels, known as the angel who guided Tobit's son in the Book of Tobit. This association with an archangel contributed to the name's popularity among early Christians.
During the Middle Ages, the name Tobias was relatively common in Europe, particularly in Germany and England. One notable bearer was Tobias Crisp (1600-1643), an English Protestant theologian and preacher known for his controversial teachings on antinomianism.
Another famous Tobias was Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), a Scottish poet and author best known for his picaresque novels, such as "The Adventures of Roderick Random" and "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker."
In the world of music, Tobias Hume (1569-1645) was an English composer and soldier, renowned for his works for viols and his innovative musical style. Tobias Picker (born 1954) is a contemporary American composer known for his operas and orchestral works.
The name Tobias has also been borne by several notable scientists and scholars, including Tobias Mayer (1723-1762), a German astronomer and mathematician who made significant contributions to the study of lunar motion, and Tobias Dantzig (1884-1956), a Polish-American mathematician and statistician.
People
Tobias + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Tobias as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Tobias: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Tobias?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 26,945 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Tobias going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 12,721 US residents.
Is Tobias a common name?
We classify Tobias as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 28,093 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Tobias most popular?
The single biggest year for Tobias was 2016, when 1,523 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Tobias is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Tobias in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 20,557 people with the name Tobias, or 6.81 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,574 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Tobias in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Tobias?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Tobias appears almost entirely male. Of the 20,558 people counted with this name, 99.5% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Tobias?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tobias is White at 58.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (17.3%) and Black (14.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Tobias most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Tobias in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.1% (11,945 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Tobias in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Tobias a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Tobias in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Tobias still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Tobias in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Tobias can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Tobias?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.