Koba
Fewer than 550 men in Poland carry Koba, and none has been given it to a boy in recent years: a name most Poles will never meet. At root it means "supplanter".
Koba Pronunciation
Koba is pronounced KO-bah (/ˈkɔba/).
What Koba means
Where Koba comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Koba reaches Polish ears as a short name with a long history behind it. It is the Georgian form of Jacob, and Jacob goes back to Hebrew Yaakov, read as "supplanter", the one who grabs the heel. So Koba shares a root with Jakub, though it travelled through the Caucasus rather than through Poland.
In Georgian writing, Koba is the name of a bold young outlaw, the hero of Alexander Kazbegi's 1882 novel The Patricide. That character gave the name its air of the young avenger, which sits close to the Polish gloss of młodzieniec, a young man.
The two meanings pull in different directions. One looks back to Jacob and the supplanter who takes his brother's place. The other reads Koba plainly as a youth. On an official form at the urząd it fits in four letters, the Slavic-sounding cousin of Jakub.
How many people are named Koba
1 in 39096 men in Poland is named Koba. 546 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1273 among male names.