The earliest mention of Hobbie ancestors took place in the spelling HOBBING from 1428 in the „Oldenburger Salbuch“, the register of land property and taxes to the counts of Oldenburg compiled by the Drosten Jacob von Specken from 1428 to 1450.
Teyleke HOBBING was named in Linswege, a settlement which was mentioned in documents as „Lynsvidon“ as early as 1124. Since this patrimony is called in the early earth books as farm No. 1, this property might have been founded there as one of the first and thus probably already existed in the 12th century. Also the „ing-form“ of the early name indicates that the farm name HOBBING in Linswege was already in use before the 15th century.
Also from 1428 Hanneke HOBBING is listed in the Salbuch in Hollwege. His patrimony carried the no. 10 in the first earth books and thus probably already before the 15th century this name must have carried, since this place was already mentioned 1107 as „Holwide in Ammeren“ in a document of the monastery Corvey.
In a document of 30 September 1437 Gerke HOBBINGE is mentioned as Meier on a manor in Apen. In the later earth books he is assigned to farm no. 6, which then belonged to hereditary farmer Dierich HOBBIE in 1581.
In the „Mannzahlregister“ (defence recruitment) of 1581 the hereditary farmer Gerdt HOBBING is named in Torsholt. 1632 is called Joh. HOBBIE on the farm (No. 7 in the earth books).
At the latest starting from about 1550 the spelling of the aforementioned families changed to HOBBY, HOBBI and HOBBIE.
Only after 1820 the surname HOBBING is accepted again, namely by the descendant of the families „HOBBY from Potshausen“ baptized as Hinrich HINRICHS in 1772. First he had adopted the name HOBBY on the basis of the imperial decree of 18 August 1811, the so-called „Code Napoleon“ for the introduction of fixed family names like some of his siblings. About 1826 on the advice of his studying son Remmer he then adopted the name Hinricus Hinrich HOBBING. Thus these families ended the East Frisian patronymic naming and took again the surnames of their Oldenburg ancestors. For further information see Potshausen.