9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Toby vs Elijah

How Toby and Elijah compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

Toby

Male · English

Meaning: Abbreviation Of The Hebrew Name Tobiah Meaning Jah Is Good.

Elijah

Male · Hebrew

Meaning: Jehovah Is God

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Toby (boys) vs Elijah (boys), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric Toby Elijah
Peak year (most US births) 2004 — 612 boys 2011 — 13,997 boys
Peak rank #428 #13
Most recent rank (2025) #979 (234 births) #7 (11,111 births)
Total US births since 1880 8,488 345,561
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 1,330 125,763

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Elijah reached 13,997 US births in 2011 — 13,385 more than Toby's peak count.

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name list.

Toby — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Kansas #530 20
2 Kentucky #553 31
3 Utah #678 18
4 Missouri #705 57
5 Minnesota #718 51

Elijah — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Arkansas #3 1,358
2 Louisiana #3 2,113
3 New Mexico #4 821
4 Oklahoma #4 1,558
5 Florida #4 8,344

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Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →