Obey

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Obey is a surname, most frequently recorded in Nigeria. In the Central African Republic it is the 21st most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: v., ngs = WO meni = hear the word; obey- ing, menila.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 456K◐
  • CFCentral African Republic1 in 1.9K
  • NGNigeria1 in 79K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈732 ●

across 2 countries

Sources
176 ●

9.7K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 456K ◐

United States

Meaning & origin●

v., ngs = WO meni = hear the word; obey- ing, menila

Sources 1

  • Vocabulary of the Mende Language

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Obey is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NG Nigeria—8851.5K rec.——Obey31
US United States—7306.7K rec.1 in 456K739Obey176
GB United Kingdom—494504 rec.——Obey37
CA Canada—131132 rec.——Obey21
AU Australia—7185 rec.——Obey14
CF Central African Republic#215454 rec.——Obey1
DZ Algeria—4561 rec.——Obey4
PH Philippines—4451 rec.——Obey6
IT Italy—4444 rec.——Obey4
NZ New Zealand—2929 rec.——Obey1
PL Poland—2—1 in 19M4——
IN India————13——

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English8K75%
  • Swahili8278%
  • Spanish3243%
  • French2272%
  • German1421%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English8,03975%
Swahili8278%
Spanish3243%
French2272%
German1421%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Obey is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname945 records spelled Obey19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Öbëy, Ôbëy, Öbêy, Obéŷ, Õbëy

  • French surname312 records spelled Obey6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Nigeria

    Also written Ốbey, Obéy, Obëy, Ôbèy

  • Turkish surname66 records spelled Obey4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Ghana, Nigeria

    Also written Öbey, Obëÿ

48 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Obey is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, To do as ordered by (a person, institution etc), to act according to the bidding of.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, David, US politician

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name●

18801900192019401960André Obey, b. 1892Dave Obey, b. 1938Arnold Obey, b. 1947

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 13 sources across 3 countries.

Official registers attesting Obey
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020739#33,232
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010730#31,656
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000716#30,716
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—13#4,404
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—8#11,211
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—7#3,426
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19206—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19555—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19435—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)20264#21,526
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—3#21,836
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)20262—

Reference works 4

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 14 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Obey?
We estimate roughly 732 people bear Obey (counting its spellings and scripts) across 2 countries in our records.
In which country does Obey have the most bearers?
Obey is most frequently recorded in Nigeria, where it is most often spelled obey.
How common is Obey compared with other names?
In the Central African Republic, Obey is the 21st most common surname of 992 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Obey mean?
Recorded meaning: v., ngs = WO meni = hear the word; obey- ing, menila
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/obey

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Obey” — the 21st most common surname in Central African Republic. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Obey parses inside a full name →