Hello November. Hello NaBloPoMo. The month where I attempt to blog daily. Usually I start of the month by telling you 10 things about myself. But not this year. Some of us talked about names last year. And that really got me thinking. I do have an unusual name. And there is a story here that is somewhat unique. And today I am telling you how my name came to be. And that I almost had to be named Tabeah. Luckily not. Excited?
The Behind the Scenes of Name Giving
First things first. Naming in Germany is not the same as in the US. San has written a great post about Middle Names that explains a lot. I will add the following: The name you want to use for your child in Germany needs to be in the official register for names. Certain names are forbidden in Germany. The use of a last name as middle name is one. Positively connoted biblical names are permitted in Germany. For a long time Jesus was forbidden but is allowed today. And while Adolf’s not officially forbidden it could get vetoed by the civil registration office when it indicates that the parents are Nazis. As a general rule, a name must not violate the personal rights of the child.
In the past, it was considered necessary to identify the gender of the child by its name. For non-specific girl or boy names, such as Kim, a middle name had to be unique. This is now considered outdated and is only a recommendation.
The Legend of my Name
So flashback to the early 80’s when I was ready to be born. I interviewed my dad about it to get “The Legend about my name” right. Back then both my parents were still in university and training. My dad a student in mathematics and physics in a town called Leipzig. My mom in a training academy for church related jobs. She lived with a room mate who was with her throughout the pregnancy while my dad was 120 km away.
I am the first of three kids for my parents. My parents happened to find a catholic naming book at a flea market which they picked up for inspiration. In that book they found the name Tobia. (Along with a number of other strange names that made us giggle as kids.) I was planning to share a photo of said book but it currently is sitting at my parents country home so I’ll have to add it in later.
Fast forward a bit: It happened that my mom’s room mate mentioned to my mom that a relative or acquaintance of hers wanted to name her daughter Tobia. But officials wouldn’t allow it as it was not in the registry. She ended up naming er daughter Tabeah. While she told that story, my mom and dad had already picked that same name for me. You need to know that in Germany it is rather uncommon to share the name before the child is born. Usually only the parents know. In later years some people started to share it beforehand but as I said not common practice.
It also happened that my dad’s university courses were in the same building as the Standesamt (German civil registration office). So he decided to drop in quickly to check if that was correct that the name couldn’t be given. He had no appointment but was greeting by an official. The official apparently checked some sort of computer (my dad’s memory – I doubt it was a computer in 1982 but who knows) and said it is true. Not a registered name. My dad then mentioned the flea market book where it was printed. The official got up, went to a book shelf, took a copy of that book, checked it and declared that since it was printed in a published book the name could be giving. He then registered that name Tobia and voilá here I am.
As you might imagine the legend has different layers. I am not able to confirm them. Sometimes it is said that since the name Tobia is very unique they needed to give me another name that would identify my gender. For that reason Anna was added. Back in the 80’s you could define a Rufname (the given name that the child would be called). In the birth certificate this name would be underlined. In my case Anna Tobia. That would always indicate to official offices what my name was even though it was not the first name.
November 2018 a new law was passed in Germany to allow people to change the order of the first names. So I could legally change my name Anna Tobia to Tobia Anna. This. was mainly initiated because mechanically scanned documents always use the first name as the name for example airlines. A lot of people ended up being called something they are not. (Spoiler, I will tell that story later in this post.)
What does my name “Tobia” mean?
But what does the name mean? Well, to be honest I have looked it up a million times and I can never really remember. But here it is:
Word composition: towb = good (Hebrew) yahweh = name of God (Hebrew)
Meaning: God is good, YHWH is good
Language: Hebrew (originally Tobijah or Toviyah)
Greek version: Tobias
Bible reference: Tobijah, two persons mentioned in the Bible: a Levite in the reign of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:8) and a Jew travelling from Babylon to Jerusalem with precious metal for Zerubbabel (Zechariah 6:10,14).
Name day: 3. März, 13. September und 2. November – I found three different dates…
In Italy it is a male name. In Hebrew ist can be both. I Scandinavian countries it is more given to baby girls.
How many people have my name
In the last ten years, Tobia has been given about 20 times as a given name, ranking it #1131 on the ten-year list within the German speaking countries. However it is often given as the male alternative of Tobias referring to the Italian tradition.
I personally have never met a person with my name. When I was playing volleyball at a jewish club Maccabi there was a man Toviyah on the board. But that is the closest I have come.
With the internet it is easier to find people with the same name though. LinkedIn says there are 3,600 pople called Tobia. A quick scroll though shows it is 95% male people. The few females I found seem to be all younger than me. Which isn’t surprising for the German speaking people as the name was registered for me and at least no one born in the Former GDR can be older than me. Not sure if the name would have been registered in Western Germany at the time.
I did find a designer lamp with my name though.
How does it feel living with that name
Most of my life I have loved my unique name. I wear it proudly. However, as you can imagine I rarely was addressed as a female. It was always assumed it is a typo. When teachers got a class list they would always say Tobias. I never raised my hand. Once they realized there was one girl unaccounted for I would say my name was Tobia. Often enough they were annoyed. Or they just called me Anna. Which I mostly didn’t listened to either as it was so uncommon to my ears.
While in school it was a bit of fun and didn’t really bother me much. It was starting to get really annoying when I left school and entered the work force. So many contracts, bills and official writings were addressed to a Mr. Tobia Nooke, Mr. Nooke, Mr. Tobias Nooke. All possible variations I have seen. I always took the time to check the buttons and boxes for gender female to make it easy. But you wouldn’t believe how many time it was (manually?!) changed in the systems. The most amazing incident here was a subscription to a woman magazine. I only subscripted for promotion offers so I re-applied multiple times. Every. single.time I checked the box female. Almost every single time the magazine was send to Mr. I called a couple of times and asked if they have nothing better to do than to assume that I was unable to type in my own name in their sign up form and they would have to correct my mistake… oh well…
Another fun incident is that I have never traveled to Israel (three times) as female. The name Tobia is male there. The boarding pass always read Mr. I was always scared they would kick me off the flight but once it was in the system it was not able to be changed. I doubt that would work today though. But back in the 90’s it was just a minor issue that the boarding pass didn’t match the person.
In the past 15 years there has been a change though. By now I rarely get called a Mr. I assume with the internet being available people do a quick search if they are unsure. It also has become more normal that names are not so standard. May be to more globalization, more parent creativity or the mixture of cultures. What ever it is I have observed a significant change.
Another thing I have observed, and that has never changed throughout the years, is that male people assume I am male on 90% of the cases. Females usually check-in before sending me emails or call so they can hear my voice. Always has been like that. Males really don’t shed a good light on themselves here. For the past 4 years I am contacting a support hotline. There are only three people there and usually I end up with the same guy. Every single time he calls me Mr. Even though we literally just had a phone conversation the following email will be addressed to a male. It is ridiculous. I even told him on the phone he can address me as female. Is that ignorance or stupidity? I don’t know. It sure isn’t respectful.
But as I mentioned before I really do like my name. I never really struggled with it. And I am proud to be having such a unique name.
Now, just quickly before I end this post: I have talked about a new law as of November 2008. When I had to renew my ID in November 2017 that new law was already issued. For previous IDs my Rufname Tobia was always indicated in the document with little stars or underlined. The new ID design didn’t have that option. When I asked the official how my Rufname is going to be identified she said it will not be anymore. I was not really happy. That would have meant Anna would become the name any document and office and official paper would be issued. So I asked that I would like to keep it. They had no idea how the new system would do it. I pointed out, that my signature is always and will always be just Tobia +Lastname. I will never sign with Anna and that this would become an issue. I was so adamant with that because in 2012 we had some issue when traveling to the US. The airline ticket was booked for Tobia and the ESTA we had issued for the full name. The officials weren’t to convinced we are the same person. And I had signed it only with Tobia. It was a big mess. So I really wanted to make sure I wasn’t setting myself up for trouble. In the end the registry office decided that when I would just sign the ID with Tobia + Lastname it would indicate that this was my Rufname. The mechanically readable part of the ID includes both first names.
Alright, I think this got way longer than anticipated and I promise the following posts will not be getting so out of hand.
Now your turn: How many people do you know with your name? Do you like your name? Do you have one or more first names? What would be the perfect name if you could choose? What is the funniest story revolving around your name? Anyone else called Anna? And will you be joining NaBloPoMo?
AND Do you have any questions for me? I will write a post with the answers if there are any. So feel free to drop those questions in the comments.
If you want to read the 10 Things about me posts I published at the start of previous NaBloPoMo here they are: part I in 2014 , part II in 2016, part III in 2017, part IV in 2018, part V in 2019, part VI in 2020, 2021 was accidentally deleted.
30 comments
This was FASCINATING. Thanks for sharing the story and what a great story to have to tell. Names fascinate me!
Names are fascinating. Even more fascinating I find the story way parents pick a particular name.
This was so fascinating to read! The German naming rules are really interesting. I don’t think we have anything like that in the US. How frustrating to deal with the constant misgendering, though.
My name isn’t uncommon, but for some reason, people call me Susan about 90% of the time. To me, they are such wildly different names I can’t see how a person would mistake one for the other, but it happens often. I don’t really like my name, but I have no idea what I’d change it to if I had the chance. I feel lucky that my parents did the choosing for me!
Yes I think the rules are different. The perception in Germany is that in the US you can basically name your kid anything (Apple, Sunshine, etc.)
I would never think of pronouncing your name Susan. It’s different spelling. Not sure I would pronounce it correctly but definitely not Susan. I agree it is a good thing the parents have to choose.
This was interesting! I’m pretty sure there are NO regulations in the US about what you can name your kid (judging by some of the crazy names I’ve seen.) I didn’t realize Tobia was so uncommon- not being German, I figured maybe it was a common German name. You are lucky- when I was born “Jenny” was a VERY common name. There were four Jenny’s in my second grade class! I think it would be fun to have a more unique name. Although, having said that, I do like my name. I guess I’m attached to it after all these years!
It is a good thing you are attached to your name. It only means you are a happy being. Jenny is a rather common name here in Germany too we had a couple Jenny’s in school too. I always liked it better than Jennifer.
And yes Tobia is really really different. In my opinion I scored the best name out of my siblings.
I laugh because my name is very common, but I have zero friends with my name. I hate it because it’s a typical 80’s name. My original name was supposed to be different, and I love that one so much more, hence I named my child that name, so that is cool. I am joining in the NaBloPoMo, thank you for coming over and reading my post today.
It is funny that certain time periods cumulate certain names. In my year it seems like every other girl was called Anna so I do have a ver very common 80s name too.
How great you got to use you favorite name for your kid. This way you get to say it probably much more than just talking about yourself.
Thank you for stopping by today.
I loved this Tobia and I really do like your name! You are the only person I know with this name and it seems so special. Kudos to your parents. I found it very hard to pick a good name for our kids. We had an elaborate rating system with the main requirement being that it should work in German and English equally well.
I do like my name (Meike) and when I lived in Germany I knew quite a few others with that name. Living in the US I don’t know anyone else. I actually get confused for a male quite a bit, too because most people assume it is a typo and my name is Mike and completely forget about it being spelled correctly when I say it – most of the times it ends in Mica or Micah even if I spell it out.
I am sorry you also get misgendered. I guess that is one of those things that get lost in translation because I bet it never happened in Germany.
I have observed that many people now want to choose names that work internationally. My dad has a name with ü and is Job required extensive international travel and it was always an issue. One the one hand I like it but on the other hand I believe a lot of unique cultural names are dying.
I love that all of the other female Tobias in Germany have you to thank!
My name is VERY common. Before I was married, I was Julie Ward, and I lived in San Francisco. I used to get phone calls for other Julie Wards all of the time. I once got a phone call from my student loan company telling me I was late on my payments, and I hadn’t even gotten my coupon book yet. They were very rude and threatening, until they realized it was the wrong Julie Ward.
I married a man with a very uncommon last name, and you would think that would make me unique, right? Wrong. My husband’s brother also married a Julie. So even now there are two of us.
Yes, I want to believe it is like that. And until I meet someone who is older than me I keep believing it.
Oh my that student loan story is mean. I hope they apologized when they realized their mistake.
And you would have thought getting married made your name more unique. How dare your brother in law falls in love with another Julie. I am sure your are unique in your own way even though your name is not supporting you there.
Thank you for reading my post and sharing your story.
Ohhh this was so fascinating! Thank you for taking the time to educate all of us! Daria is a persian name but also exists in Italy, Greece and many Slavic countries. Origins… From Darius, the Persian King. Or from two twin rivers in Central Asia: Amu-darya and Syr-darya .
Two rivers. I did not know that. Very interesting.
I used to play volleyball with a Daria. She was also from Russia so for me it always was somewhat a Russian name.
Names are fun.
That was super-interesting (and also thanks for linking back to my post about middle names) – the whole naming business is so fascinating. So cool that your name was registered because of your Dad’s insistence.
You’re the only person I know whose name is Tobia, although I used to know a ‘Tabea’. I always thought your name was just the female version of Tobias, I was not aware that it’s a male name in other parts of the world (so it’s like “Andrea”, which is also a male name in Italy.
I cannot believe that people have addressed you as Mr. over and over. What an ordeal.
Well, as you can probably imagine, I know a lot of ‘Sandras’. Sandra was a very popular name in Germany in the later 70s. There were so many Sandras (and Stefanies and Jennifers). Interestingly, when I moved to the US, Sandra – at least in my generation – was not very common, so my name stood out more.
I am ok with my name. It’s not my favorite, but it could be a lot worse. Haha.
P.S. so excited you’re part of NaBloPoMo again this year <3
Everything around names is fascinating. Not only the origin of a name but also the thoughts parents had and the stories behind.
Yes, in many cultures Tobia is a male name due to the biblical origin. I didn’t know that for a long time. The worst is always the comment “Haha you parents wanted a boy, didn’t they.”
Sandra was a very popular name even in the early 80’s. I think there was a Sandra in every class at least I went to. However when I think of you I actually never think Sandra. I love your nickname San and even if I tell the husband about you it’s always San. He would not know you otherwise.
And yes, of course I am doing NaBloPo. I don’t even know how many years I have done it now.
Ha! I love that you refer to me as San (as you should :))…. but now I am curious, how do you actually pronounce it? The German way or the English way? (I’ve heard both from people.)
Ha, I never thought about that but I actually do pronounce it the German way.
Which is funny because I usually make sure I don’t do that. But I guess that is what happens when you still think and know the person is German. Also I personally think it sounds cooler. But that is just me. The more important question is how do you pronounce it or how would you like it to be pronounced?
I love name stories! Thank you for sharing!
I have never encountered Tobia before, but I remember when I first stumbled across your blog thinking what a lovely and unique name it was.
I think naming is such a fascinating thing – there are so many personal and cultural factors involved when choosing a name and it’s such a big decsion.
I don’t think my name was terribly popular when I was born. Most of the people I meet with my name are usually someone’s aunt or mother or grandmother. There was one person in my college choir with the same name as me on paper, but she was from France, and so pronounced it as one would in France so there was never any confusion there.
Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving (your first?!) comment. I very much appreciate it.
I am trying to pronounce Diane in French but I can’t wrap my head around it. I do know a Diane but she is my mom’s age so I guess that aligns with your experience. I do think common names that have a tradition in ones culture are nice names too. My sister has one of those names. When she was young everyone teased her about having a granny name but now it is somewhat unique. She had to grow out of it.
I agree name stories are fascinating.
Your name is lovely and it is so interesting hearing how you got it. I’ve meet a few ladies with my name – even worked with another Anthea many years ago!
Oh that is interesting. Is Anthea a regular name in South Africa? For me the name sounds very unique and I have not heard it before.
I agree that this was fascinating. The naming conventions are so different in different countries. I have a relatively uncommon name for people of my generation, although it’s been gaining popularity in recent years. Like yours, the male form of my name is relatively common, and I frequently get called by that name. Funnily enough, I was born in Germany when all this naming went down!
So you were born in Germany – I didn’t know that.
I actually happen to know another lady with your name. And my cousin has your name just with an A at the end. So for me it is a known name. But I bet that you are also struggling with the gender thing. So annoying…
Wow, I am fascinated by how different the naming system works in Germany vs US. We don’t have anything like that, which is why we have some VERY interesting names. Probably names that should haven’t been allowed, lol.
I did not like my name growing up because it was spelled differently, but now I really like being Stephany-with-a-Y. I think it looks prettier than Stephanie, haha. It’s VERY rare for me to run across someone with a spelling like mine, but it just happened a few weeks ago at Starbucks. We had both done an online order and noticed that we had the same spelling on our cups. What a wild coincidence!
That really is a wild coincident since your name spelling is so very different. Di you get to chat with your name sake for a bit?
I am always fascinated by how people receive their names and I think the way names are regulated in various countries is interesting. Here in America, I know many people with two, three, or even more middles names. Many of us (myself included) don’t even go by our given name. Thanks so much for sharing this, Tobia!
I know right? The cultural differences are so interesting. I love that too. I had no idea Lecy wasn’t your given name. There are people here that do have many names too. A friend of me has 6 given names which can be a pain when signing official documents.
This is so interesting, thanks for sharing! I legally changed my name when I got married from Sara Kathryn (LastName) to Kate (LastName) (NewLastname). I never went by Sara, and I felt about it much like you seem to feel about Anna – just sounds like someone else’s name to me, not my own! But I do wonder: How exactly is Tobia pronounced? Is it TOE-bee-uh or to-BEE-uh? I’m not sure where the emphasis goes.
Oh I wasn’t aware you had your name changed. But I agree you do’t feel like a Sara. Even though that is a beautiful name too.
The emphasis for my name is on the second syllable. So to-BEE-uh.