Tooting Bec appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as "Totinges".

A relief sculpture of Saint Anselm visiting the Totinges tribe (from which Tooting gets its name) is on the exterior of Wandsworth Town Hall.

Tooting Bec is on Stane Street, a Roman Road which linked London with Chichester to the southwest.

The area includes Tooting Commons, and Tooting Bec Lido, one of the oldest open-air fresh water swimming pools in Britain, first opened to the public in 1906, and also the largest freshwater swimming pool by surface area in the United Kingdom, being 100 yards (91.44 m) long and 33 yards (30.18 m) wide.

[5] The Finnish band Hanoi Rocks wrote the song "Tooting Bec Wreck" about their experiences living there in the early 1980s.