Coby
- Pronunciation
- [Co-by]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Variant Of Coburn.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Coby
Coby is presented as a variant of Coburn, an English surname derived from the Old English place-name elements col (a narrow passage or stream) and burna (a stream or brook), meaning "the stream in the narrow valley." However, Coby functions in practice primarily as an alternate spelling of Koby or Kobe — forms that carry different cultural associations — and its simple two-syllable structure gives it the casual, nickname feel of a name that has traveled some distance from its occupational surname roots. The Co- opening and the -by ending align it visually and phonetically with names like Toby and Rory.
Coby first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 and peaked the following year, reaching its best rank of #462 in 2001. It last charted in 2008 at #842 with 258 births, accumulating 3,059 total top-1000 births over its nine-year run — one of the more compact footprints in this batch. Mid-decade figures of 246 births at #828 in 2006 and 236 births at #874 in 2007 show a steady, modest presence before the final exit.
Coby's appeal in the early 2000s was largely phonetic — it shared the popular -by suffix sound with Toby and offered an alternative visual form for families drawn to the broader Koby/Kobe sound cluster. Its brief chart life reflects its position as a spelling variant within a competitive phonetic family rather than an independent name with its own strong cultural identity. Recorded variants include Cobie, Kobe, Kobey, Kobi, Kobie, and Koby, a sizeable family that shares the same sound across a range of spellings.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Coby
US Popularity History (2000–2008)
Annual US births named Coby by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2001 with 516 boys named Coby (boy rank #462 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2008, ranked #842 for boys (258 US births). That's 380 places below its 2001 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Coby Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Coby the strongest states are Wisconsin, Tennessee, Missouri.
Strongest boys-name states
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Coby in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Coby?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Coby to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Coby against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).