I always get a kick out of it when folks say Tobias is this or that. My research over the last 30 years indicates that it is a patrymonic--a surname adapted from a father's first name. If you look on familysearch.org, you'll see that a Daniel Tobias born in the 1700's is the son of Tobias Davies in Wales. I've also seen it described as a Greek form of Tobey (how many of us have Toby as a nickname?).

My two cents is that it is an international name, defying boundaries. If you look at the U.S. Census Soundex records, you'll see that it is from every country, and probably someone from every religion.

Good luck in your search!

Phil Tobias

Adina is a Jewish name that means sweet.
many jews escaped the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 by joining expeditions to the new world.
Sadly, the inquisition followed them there.

Public burnings of Jews took place in South and Central America. Mexico is home to many of the decendants too.
The majority of spanish jews were sephardic...
many of them had dark skin.

they only hid their religion from their own children when it became dangerous for the children themselves to know who they were. they did pass on many secrets to the women... who by Jewish law are the determinants of Jewish Identity.

Their hope was that their daughters would be able to keep the traditions enough, that their decendants would someday return to the faith of their grandparents.

I am pretty sure the surname Tobias comes from a first name Tobias which is frequent in several countries. The surname Tobias is very common in one region in Eastern Slovakia (Presov).