Tobe

Where Tobe comes from

Tobe hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #465 among boys — 15 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1881
    Peak, #431
    16 babies named Tobe — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1884
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #701.
  4. 1943
    Tobe Hooper born
    American film director, screenwriter and producer
  5. 1965
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  6. 2002
    Tobe Leysen born
    Belgian association football player
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Tobe Hooper · American film director, screenwriter and producer, 1943–2017
  • Tobe Leysen · Belgian association football player, born 2002
  • Tobe Sexton · American actor, born 1968
  • Tobe Levin · American academic, born 1948

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.