Obie
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A small lamp positioned over the camera, sometimes used to produce catchlights in the subject's eyes
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈoʊbi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Obie is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 223K(measured from records)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 129K
- CACanada≈1 in 204K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 250 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 129K (inferred from the name graph)
1,493 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A small lamp positioned over the camera, sometimes used to produce catchlights in the subject's eyes.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Obie 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,493 | 1 in 223K | 1.4K | Obie | 250 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 207K | — | Obie | 26 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 222K | — | Obie | 11 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 285K | 32 | Obie | 47 |
| IT Italy | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 279K | — | Obie | 3 |
| CA Canada | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 204K | — | Obie | 25 |
| SG Singapore | ≈48 est. | ≈1 in 129K | — | Obie | 4 |
1,493 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral 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)
Obie is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, off-Broadway award
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In Polish, feminine nominative/accusative/vocative plural of oba
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Obie Baizleyb. 1917CACanadian politician (1917–2000)
- Obie O'Nealb. 1925USAmerican football coach (1925–1994)
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 19 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 663 | #34,223 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 646 | #33,333 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 638 | #37,492 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 32 | #67,185 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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
- What does the name Obie mean, and where does it come from?
- A small lamp positioned over the camera, sometimes used to produce catchlights in the subject's eyes. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Obie?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈoʊbi/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Obie a male or female name?
- Obie is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Obie have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.5 thousand people named Obie, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled obie.
- How common is the name Obie?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,493 people named Obie in 2020, about 1 in 223 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Obie?
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/obieThe 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, “Obie”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.