Bob
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Altered short form of Robert, a later development than the common medieval forms Hob, Dob, and Nob, all of which, unlike Bob, have given rise to English surnames
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɑb/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bob is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.1K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.4K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #799 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 592 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈340,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Altered short form of Robert, a later development than the common medieval forms Hob, Dob, and Nob, all of which, unlike Bob, have given rise to English surnames. Pet forms: Bobby, Bobbie. Bobbie °, 3 Variant of Bobby (see Bob), now mainly used as a girl’s name, in part as a pet form of Roberta. Variant: Bobbi.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bob counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | — | Bob | 75 |
| US United States | #315 | 51,102 | 1 in 6.5K | 50K | Bob | 592 |
| CA Canada | #190 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 5 | Bob | 277 |
| GB United Kingdom | #436 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Bob | 283 |
| DZ Algeria | #444 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Bob | 25 |
| AU Australia | #437 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Bob | 221 |
| NZ New Zealand | #267 | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Bob | 129 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the ca-statcan-baby-names register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Bob is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, To move gently and vertically, in either a single motion or repeatedly up and down, at or near the surface of a body of water, or similar medium.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Bob är en engelsk smekform till → Robert.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Diminutif anglais de Robert, germanique « gloire brillante ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In German, short form; see Bob-/Böb- and BOD/Poppo
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Swahili, short form used from Mahboob
as a nameAfrican Muslim Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Bob Hopeb. 1903GBAmerican entertainer (1903–2003)
- Bob Paisleyb. 1919GBEnglish footballer and manager (1919–1996)
- Bob Doleb. 1923USAmerican politician (1923–2021)
- Bob Hastingsb. 1925USAmerican actor (1925–2014)
- Bob Cousyb. 1928USAmerican basketball player and coach (born 1928)
- Robert Shayeb. 1939USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and film director (born 1939)
- Bob Woodwardb. 1943USAmerican investigative journalist (born 1943)
- Bob Jolesb. 1959USAmerican voice actor
- Bob Bryanb. 1978USAmerican tennis player
- Bob Morleyb. 1984AUAustralian actor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 86 sources across 48 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 50K | #886 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 621 | #886 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2014 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1970 | 5 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Bob come from?
- Altered short form of Robert, a later development than the common medieval forms Hob, Dob, and Nob, all of which, unlike Bob, have given rise to English surnames. Pet forms: Bobby, Bobbie. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What are other forms of the name Bob?
- In the etymology graph, Roberto, Robin and Rob are forms of the same name in other languages; Bobby and Bobbie are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of Robert.
- How do you pronounce Bob?
- A machine transcription gives /bɑb/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Bob mean?
- Recorded meaning: Altered short form of Robert, a later development than the common medieval forms Hob, Dob, and Nob, all of which, unlike Bob, have given rise to English surnames.
- Is Bob a male or female name?
- Bob is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Bob?
- In the United States, the national register counted 51,102 people named Bob in 2020, about 1 in 6.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Bob compared with other names?
- In Canada, Bob is the 190th most common given name of 188,338 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Bob have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 343 thousand people named Bob in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bob.
What do you want to know about Bob?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bobThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Bob” — the 190th most common given name in Canada. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.