Tobin
An Irish surname usually treated as a shortened form of Tobias, the biblical name meaning “God is good.”
The #1,896 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 16,308 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Most surname authorities connect Tobin with Tobias, ultimately from Hebrew Toviyyah, meaning “God is good.” The name passed into Greek and Latin Christian use, then into medieval English forms such as Toby and Tobyn, from which Tobin is commonly taken as a diminutive or pet-form surname. Some older writers also link Irish Tobin families with Norman or French forms, so the name may have more than one historical pathway in different families.
History
In England, Tobin appears as a relatively late surname in the records cited by older lexicographers, alongside related forms like Toby, Tobyn, and Tobutt. In Ireland, the name became especially established in Tipperary and was long associated by some writers with an Anglo-Norman family tradition. Because the surname can arise from more than one source line, not every modern Tobin family has the same origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname writers sometimes treated Tobin as a “double diminutive” of Tobias, which is a fancy way of saying it may have passed through more than one nickname form before becoming a fixed surname.
From the historical record
“T°|f,^}v.Tohy. TOBIN, a double dim. of Tobias, q.v. TOBINS, Tobin's (Son) : v. Tobln. TOBIT(T (Gr.-Heb.) [Gr. Twj3fe)fT = Heb. Tdbhiydh : v. Tobias] TOBY, an Anglicized form of Tobias, q.v. "Who so hath rauche, spende manUche": So seith Tohye.— Piers Plowman, 5781-2.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Tobin
- James Tobin (1918–2002)
- Tobin Bell (b. 1942)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.