Tatum
- Pronunciation
- [Ta-tum]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Brings Joy
- Origin
- English
About the Name Tatum
Tatum is an English surname meaning "Tata's homestead" — from the Old English personal name Tata (of unknown etymology) plus ham (homestead, village). The surname appears in English records continuously since the medieval period.
The name's most influential modern cultural anchor is American actress Tatum O'Neal (born 1963, the youngest competitive Oscar winner in history — winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at age 10 for her role in Paper Moon 1973 — anchoring the name in 1970s American film history). Other notable bearers include American actor Channing Tatum (using Tatum as a surname, born 1980, the American actor of 21 Jump Street, Magic Mike, and Step Up); contemporary American basketball player Tatum Brooks; and various contemporary American influencers.
Tatum's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1990 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name has been used predominantly for girls but has occasional boys' usage. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the strong Tatum O'Neal cultural anchor, and the popular two-syllable -um ending. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. The name reads as both classical-Anglo-Saxon and contemporary American. Common nicknames Tate (the dominant short form, gender-neutral and casual), Tay, Tatti, and the rare Tum each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Tatum and Tatum-Lee have their own SSA tracking. There are no significant international variants since the name's first-name use is essentially American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Tatum
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Tatum by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2024 with 1,833 boys named Tatum (boy rank #195 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #202 for boys (1,736 US births). That's 7 places below its 2024 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Tatum Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Tatum the strongest states are North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maine.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #170 | 35 |
| 2 | New Hampshire | #192 | 23 |
| 3 | Maine | #205 | 37 |
| 4 | West Virginia | #205 | 64 |
| 5 | Montana | #215 | 21 |
| 6 | Hawaii | #225 | 40 |
| 7 | South Dakota | #231 | 33 |
| 8 | Louisiana | #256 | 236 |
| 9 | Idaho | #265 | 57 |
| 10 | Mississippi | #272 | 127 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #665 | 179 |
| 2 | California | #620 | 416 |
| 3 | Virginia | #585 | 177 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | #580 | 187 |
| 5 | Florida | #576 | 316 |
| 6 | New Jersey | #535 | 46 |
| 7 | Arizona | #517 | 127 |
| 8 | Washington | #494 | 149 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #487 | 142 |
| 10 | Texas | #481 | 662 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Tatum in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Tatum?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Tatum to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Tatum against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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