From the Dictionary of Nautical, University, Gypsy and Other Vulgar Tongues first published in 1859.
That Nob is outnumbered by the Mob.
Nob: the head. Pugilistic; “Bob a Nob,” a shilling a head. Ancient cant, Neb. Nob is an early English word, and is used in the Romance of Kynge Alisunder (thirteenth century) for a head; originally, no doubt, the same as knob.
Nob: a person of high position, a “swell,” a nobleman, of which word it may be an abbreviation. See Snob.
(So, under Snob I found this:
Snob: a low, vulgar, or affected person. Supposed to be from the nickname usually applied to a Crispin, or a maker of shoes; but believed by a writer in Notes and Queries to be a contraction of the Latin, Sine Obolo. A more probable derivation, however has just been forwarded by an ingenious correspondent. He supposes that Nobs, i.e., Nobiles, was appended in lists to the names of persons of gentle birth, whilst those who had not that distinction were marked down as s. Nob., i.e., sine nobilitate, without marks of gentility, thus reversing its meaning. Another “word-twister” remarks that, as at college sons of nobleman wrote after their names in the admissions lists, fil nob., son of a lord, and hence all young noblemen were called Nobs, and what they did, Nobby, so those who imitated them would be called quasi-nobs, “like a nob,” which by a process of contraction would be shortened to si-nob, and then Snob, one who pretends to be what he is not, and apes his betters. The short and expressive terms which many think fitly represents the three great estate of the realm, Nob, Snob and Mob, were all originally slang words. The last has safely passed through the vulgar ordeal of the streets and found respectable quarters in the standard dictionaries.)
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