Toi is a fairly common man's name in Māori

Maori language

Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

 and other Polynesian languages

Polynesian languages

The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. They are classified as part of the Austronesian family, belonging to the Oceanic branch of that family. They fall into two branches: Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Polynesians share many cultural traits...

.

The best known men named Toi are the following from Māori legend

Maori mythology

Māori mythology and Māori traditions are the two major categories into which the legends of the Māori of New Zealand may usefully be divided...

ary history, who are sometimes confused with one another:

• Toi-te-huatahi, in Te Arawa
  Te Arawa
  Te Arawa is a confederation of Māori iwi and hapu based in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty areas of New Zealand, with a population of around 40,000.The history of the Te Arawa people is inextricably linked to the Arawa canoe...
  
   tradition, a chief who never left Hawaiki
  Hawaiki
  In Māori mythology, Hawaiki is the homeland of the Māori, the original home of the Māori, before they travelled across the sea to New Zealand...
  
  . In the Ngati Awa
  Ngati Awa
  Ngāti Awa is a Māori iwi centred in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand.Ngāti Awa comprises 22 hapu , with 15,258 people claiming affiliation to the iwi in 2006. The Ngāti Awa people are primarily located in towns on the Rangitaiki Plain, including Whakatane, Kawerau, Edgecumbe, Te...
  
   tradition, a descendant of Tiwakawaka (fantail), the original settler of New Zealand. In the discredited 'orthodox' or "Great Fleet" story, a man from Hawaiki who settled at Whakatane
  Whakatane
  Whakatane is a town in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region, in the North Island of New Zealand, and is the seat of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. Whakatane is 90 km east of Tauranga and 89 km north-east of Rotorua, at the mouth of the Whakatane River.The town has a population of , with...
  
   after following his grandson Whatonga.
• Toi-te-huatahi II in the discredited Great Fleet story, a man who settled at Whakatane
  Whakatane
  Whakatane is a town in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region, in the North Island of New Zealand, and is the seat of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. Whakatane is 90 km east of Tauranga and 89 km north-east of Rotorua, at the mouth of the Whakatane River.The town has a population of , with...
  
   after following his grandson Whatonga, much later than Toi-te-huatahi I.
• Toi-kai-rākau, an ancestor of the Tūhoe
  Tuhoe
  Ngāi Tūhoe , a Māori iwi of New Zealand, takes its name from an ancestral figure, Tūhoe-pōtiki. The word tūhoe literally means "steep" or "high noon" in the Māori language...
  
  tribe. In some traditions, this is an alternative name for Toi-te-huatahi.

The descendants of Toi-kai-rākau are named Te Tini-a-Toi – the many descendants of Toi. In the part of the Bay of Plenty where the Mataatua canoe landed, these descendants were divided into at least 18 groups or hapu. Sometimes also the name Te Tini o Toi is used.

Literature

• Halbert, R. (1999) Horouta, Reed Books, Auckland. ISBN 0-7900-0623-5
• Simmonds, D.R. (1976)The Great New Zealand Myth, Reed Books.