When was the name Bob first recorded in historical documents?
Executive summary
The short name Bob derives from the medieval hypocorism of Robert and appears in documentary and literary records from the Middle Ages onward, with the surname form attested as early as 1196 in English administrative rolls and the nickname/given-name form showing up in later medieval literature by the 14th century [1] [2] [3]. Modern references and baby‑name databases reiterate this medieval origin but differ in emphasis and in the earliest documentary touchpoints they cite [4] [5] [6].
1. Origins: Bob as a medieval hypocorism of Robert
Linguistic and onomastic sources trace Bob to Rob, itself a short form of the Germanic name Robert (from Hrodebert, “bright fame”), and place the formation of rhyming nicknames like Bob, Hob, Dob, and Nob squarely in the Middle Ages when such rhymes were fashionable [1] [4] [7]. Etymological discussion further ties contemporary senses of “bob” (the verb and common noun) to Middle English vocabulary attested from the 14th century, underlining that both the name and common word-forms were morphing in medieval English usage [8].
2. Documentary earliests: surname evidence from 1196
When asking “when was Bob first recorded in historical documents,” the clearest early documentary citation in the assembled reporting is a surname instance: a Robert le Bobbe appears in the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire for 1196, which onomastic sites cite as the earliest recorded bearer of the BOB surname in England [2]. That Pipe Rolls entry is an administrative record and demonstrates that a Bob/Bobbe spelling was in official use by the late 12th century, though in that record it functions as a surname or nickname attached to a Latinized/Norman bureaucratic context rather than necessarily as a modern given name.
3. Given-name and literary attestations: 14th century and later
Evidence that “Bob” functioned as a familiar form or character name appears in later medieval literature: secondary onomastic summaries point to 14th‑century writings, notably Geoffrey Chaucer’s corpus, as containing instances of a character named Bob, placing the name-as-nickname in the literary record by the later Middle Ages [3]. Scholarly and popular name histories also flag 19th‑century literary usage—Charles Dickens’ Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol —as a well-known instance that reflects and reinforces Bob’s identity as a familiar given form derived from Robert [4].
4. What “first recorded” can mean and the limits of sources
Different sources frame “first recorded” differently: surname records in fiscal rolls yield the 1196 citation for Bob/Bobbe [2], medieval literature supplies 14th‑century attestations for the nickname/given form [3], and modern civil‑registration datasets (like Social Security records in the U.S.) only begin in the 19th century and therefore cannot address medieval history—the SSA‑based earliest U.S. birth for a person literally named “Bob” is 1865 in some compiled datasets, but that speaks to modern registration, not the name’s origin [6]. Popular baby‑name sites and etymologies repeat the medieval origin story [1] [7] [9] but sometimes conflate surname, nickname, literary, and modern civil records, so they require cross‑checking with primary rolls or scholarly onomastic work for precision.
Conclusion: a careful answer
If “first recorded” is taken as the earliest documentary appearance of the element spelled Bob/Bobbe, administrative records in England show it in 1196 as a surname‑type entry in the Pipe Rolls [2]; if the question seeks the earliest evidence of Bob as a familiar form or character name, medieval literature records the nickname by the 14th century [3]. Later, Dickens’ 1843 Bob Cratchit popularized the given‑name usage in modern literature [4]. The reporting assembled supports these milestones but does not provide direct access to the primary medieval manuscripts themselves, so the exact paleographic spellings and contexts would require consulting the original Pipe Rolls and Chaucerian editions cited by specialist sources.