Toby is a popular male (or lesser popular female) name in many English speaking

English-speaking world

The English-speaking world consists of those countries or regions that use the English language to one degree or another. For more information, please see:Lists:* List of countries by English-speaking population...

 countries.
The name is ultimately derived from Hebrew אלוהים הוא טוב Alohim hoa Tov and roughly translates as "The Lord is Good". The name is now often used in its own right, but originated as a contraction of Tobias

Tobias

Tobias is a Greek version of the Hebrew biblical name "Toviyah" , meaning "Yahweh is good". It is a popular male given name in Germany, Scandinavia, the United States and amongst Jewish people. In English-speaking countries it is often shortened to Toby. Other diminutives are Tobi , Tobsen and...

. It is also used as a contraction of Tobit

Tobit

Tobit may refer to* Book of Tobit, a book of scripture that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canon* Tobit model, an econometric model for censored endogenous variables proposed by James Tobin...

, Tobin

Tobin

-Tobin:* Alex Tobin , Australian soccer player* Amon Tobin , Brazilian musician* Austin Joseph Tobin , executive director of the Port of New York Authority* Bill Tobin , major-league baseball first baseman...

 (an Irish surname now also used as a forename), or Tobermory.

In The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

by J.R.R. Tolkien "Toby" is used as a contraction of the hobbit

Hobbit

Hobbits are a fictional diminutive race who inhabit the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction.Hobbits first appeared in the novel The Hobbit, in which the main protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is the titular hobbit...

 name "Tobold", and "Old Toby" is used as a name for a type of tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

.

Toby was the name of a black slave

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, whose descendant the author Alex Haley

Alex Haley

Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...

 wrote the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the U.S....

about his roots in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, his ancestor's life of struggle for freedom in American society. Toby was often used as a name for slaves in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Toby also became a generic name for a "learned pig

Learned pig

The learned pig was a pig taught to respond to commands in such a way that it appeared to be able to answer questions by picking up cards in its mouth. By choosing cards it answered arithmetical problems and spelled out words. The "learned pig" caused a sensation in London during the 1780s...

", a type of performing pig supposed to display intellectual abilities.