Tokunbo
A masculine Yoruba name meaning "wealth divinely acquired from across the seas".
Name Census estimates that about 14 living Americans carry the first name Tokunbo. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 66.7% of registrations being male. The average person named Tokunbo today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Tokunbo births was 1981 (10 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Tokunbo. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Tokunbo. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
14
~ 1 in 24,482,453 Americans
Peak year
1981
10 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
1993 SSA rank
#10,023
Tracked since 1981
Census
Tokunbo in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 191 people with the first name Tokunbo, which placed it at #39,504 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#39,504
National first-name rank
People counted
191
191 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
93.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Tokunbo
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tokunbo is Black at 93.7%. The next largest groups are White (2.1%) and Two or More Races (1.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Tokunbo described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Tokunbo at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American93.7% · 179
- White2.1% · 4
- Two or more races1.6% · 3
- Hispanic or Latino1.0% · 2
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 2
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 1
Gender
Gender distribution for Tokunbo
Tokunbo is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 15 total registrations, 10 (66.7%) were male and 5 (33.3%) were female.
Tokunbo as a male name
- Ranked #10,023 in 1993
- 5 male births in 1993
- Peak: 1981 (5 births)
Tokunbo as a female name
- Ranked #12,068 in 1981
- 5 female births in 1981
- Peak: 1981 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Tokunbo on both sides of the split. Of the 188 people counted with this name, 109 were male (58.0%) and 79 were female (42.0%).
Popularity
Tokunbo: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Tokunbo from the 1980s through to the 1990s, spanning 2 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 10 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1980s peak, Tokunbo remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Tokunbo by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Tokunbo during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Tokunbo
Tokunbo is a gender-neutral Yoruba name from West Africa, particularly Nigeria. The name is derived from the Yoruba words "toku" meaning "wealth" and "nbo" meaning "this". Thus, Tokunbo can be interpreted as "this wealth" or "this affluence".
The Yoruba people are an ethnic group native to southwestern Nigeria and southern Benin. Their language, Yoruba, is a tonal language spoken by over 30 million people. The Yoruba culture has a rich history dating back to the 11th century, and their naming traditions often reflect values, hopes, and circumstances surrounding a child's birth.
While the name Tokunbo has been in use among the Yoruba people for centuries, one of the earliest recorded references can be found in the Ifa literary corpus, a collection of Yoruba oral traditions and divination verses. These texts, which date back to the 16th century or earlier, mention individuals bearing the name Tokunbo.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Tokunbo. One of the earliest was Tokunbo Idowu Phillipson Awolowo (1905-1992), a Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a prominent role in the country's independence movement. He served as the first Premier of the Western Region of Nigeria from 1954 to 1959.
Another notable Tokunbo was Tokunbo Ajayi (1917-2009), a Nigerian feminist and educator who was a pioneer in the field of women's education in Nigeria. She established the Iwoye Secondary School for Girls in 1958, which was one of the first secondary schools for girls in the country.
In the realm of sports, Tokunbo Amusan (born 1994) is a Nigerian track and field athlete who specializes in the 100 meters hurdles. She is the current world record holder in the event, setting the record at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
In the arts, Tokunbo Akinro (born 1965) is a Nigerian sculptor and installation artist known for her works that explore themes of identity, memory, and the African diaspora. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.
Lastly, Tokunbo Ogunfunmi (born 1952) is a Nigerian-American engineer and academic who has made significant contributions to the field of signal processing. He is currently a professor at the University of Houston and has authored several books on digital signal processing.
These are just a few examples of notable individuals throughout history who have borne the name Tokunbo, reflecting its long-standing use and significance within the Yoruba culture and beyond.
People
Tokunbo + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Tokunbo as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Tokunbo: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Tokunbo?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 14 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Tokunbo going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 24,482,453 US residents.
Is Tokunbo a common name?
We classify Tokunbo as "Very Rare". It ranks above 34% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 15 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Tokunbo most popular?
The single biggest year for Tokunbo was 1981, when 10 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Tokunbo is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Tokunbo in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 191 people with the name Tokunbo, or 0.06 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #39,504 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Tokunbo in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Tokunbo?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Tokunbo on both sides of the split. Of the 188 people counted with this name, 109 were male (58.0%) and 79 were female (42.0%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Tokunbo?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tokunbo is Black at 93.7%. The next largest groups are White (2.1%) and Two or More Races (1.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Tokunbo most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Tokunbo in the 2020 Census, accounting for 93.7% (179 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Tokunbo in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Tokunbo a male name?
Yes, 66.7% of people registered as Tokunbo in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Tokunbo still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Tokunbo in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Tokunbo can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Tokunbo?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.