Toba
loc · Latin script
Meaning: lang., people, Sumatra [Batak]; lang
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Toba is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in Indonesia.
- IDIndonesia
- ESSpain
- ARArgentina
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.
- Indonesia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 57 (measured from records)
no count published
Highest-authority source
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
lang., people, Sumatra [Batak]; lang
Sources 1
- Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Toba counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ID Indonesia | — | — | Toba | 52 |
| ES Spain | — | 426 | Toba | 55 |
| MX Mexico | — | — | Toba | 57 |
| AR Argentina | — | 98 | Toba | 36 |
| US United States | — | 459 | — | 55 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | — | 219 | — | — |
| BR Brazil | — | 134 | — | 22 |
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; INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)
Toba 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, people, Argentina
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In ibl, a kind of shrub; its leaves, fruit and roots are poisonous and are pounded in slow-moving water to intoxicate (disorient) the fish and make them easy to catch
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In agn, a kind of tree whose root can be used to blind or poison fish around rocks in shallow water and cause them to come to the surface
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In English, An indigenous ethnic group of Argentina who historically inhabited the region now known as the Pampas of the Central Chaco.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mvo, elevated barrier islands (i.e. islands enclosing sheltered water)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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)
- Tuoba Yilub. 250not in their usual nameChieftain of the western Tuoba territory from 295 to 307
- Tuoba Shiyijianb. 318CNnot in their usual namePrince, founder of the Tuoba state of Dai (Sixteen Kingdoms)
- Emperor Daowu of Northern Weib. 371CNnot in their usual namefounding emperor of Northern Wei (during the Northern dynasties period, China)
- Tuoba Taob. 408CNnot in their usual nameNorthern Wei emperor
- Tuoba Huangb. 428not in their usual nameNorthern Wei imperial prince
- Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Weib. 467not in their usual nameEmperor of Northern Wei Dynasty from 471 to 499
- Li Sigongb. 801not in their usual nameformally the Duke of Xia (夏公), was a Tangut warlord of the late Tang dynasty, decreed surname to Li from Tuoba
- Jun Tobab. 1978JPJapanese actor
- Shūsaku Tobab. 1978JPJapanese chef
- Andreas Tobab. 1990DEGerman gymnast
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 36 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 426 | #9,083 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 426 | #9,072 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 219 | #1,942 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 156 | #117,879 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 148 | #117,480 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 134 | #50,632 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 130 | #122,534 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 98 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 Toba mean?
- Recorded meaning: lang., people, Sumatra [Batak]; lang
- In which country does Toba have the most bearers?
- Toba is most frequently recorded in Indonesia, where it is most often spelled toba.
What do you want to know about Toba?
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/tobaThe 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, “Toba”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.