Proby
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pɹowbʲi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Proby is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States. Recorded meaning: Main GB Location (1881): scattered in England:. of uncertain origin; perhaps locative, from Proby Farm in Elton (Hunts), but no medieval evidence for this place-name has been found.
- USUnited States
- CACanada
- GBUnited Kingdom
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Main GB Location (1881): scattered in England:. of uncertain origin; perhaps locative, from Proby Farm in Elton (Hunts), but no medieval evidence for this place-name has been found. The place may take its name from the surname, in which case the surname has an alternative, unknown origin. Further information: This name is rare in Britain but is thriving in the USA.
Sources 2
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- John Probyb. 1698British politician, died 1762
- John Proby, 1st Baron Carysfortb. 1720GBBritish politician (1720-1772)
- John Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfortb. 1751GBBritish politician and judge
- William Proby, Lord Probyb. 1779FRRoyal Navy officer and politician (1779-1804)
- John Proby, 2nd Earl of Carysfortb. 1780GBBritish Army general
- Granville Proby, 3rd Earl of Carysfortb. 1782GBBritish naval commander and Whig politician (1782-1868)
- Granville Proby, 4th Earl of Carysfortb. 1824IEBritish politician (1824-1872)
- Sir Peter Proby, 2nd Baronetb. 1911GBBritish baronet (1911–2002)
- P.J. Probyb. 1938USAmerican singer, songwriter, and actor
- Gizzleb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican hip hop songwriter and rapper
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 8 sources across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 542 | #40,371 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 537 | #43,339 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 469 | #43,377 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 19 | #93,697 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 14 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 8 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 8 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 4 | — |
Reference works 2
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Proby mean, and where does it come from?
- Main GB Location (1881): scattered in England:. of uncertain origin; perhaps locative, from Proby Farm in Elton (Hunts), but no medieval evidence for this place-name has been found. Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Proby?
- A machine transcription gives /pɹowbʲi/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Proby have the most bearers?
- Proby is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Proby?
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/probyThe 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, “Proby”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.