After 111-year-old Frenchman Émile Fourcade's death on 29 December 1995, Tonaki became the last living man born in 1884 as well as the second-oldest living man behind Danish-born Americanman Christian Mortensen, although Americanman Johnson Parks has been verified to have been 15 days older than Tonaki but recently become disputed after a study proving that he may have been born around ten years later than he claimed.