Tom
- Pronunciation
- [Tom]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Derives From Thomas Twin.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Tom
Tom is the standard English short form of Thomas, which derives from the Aramaic Toma meaning twin — a name carried by the apostle Thomas in the New Testament and by saints, monarchs, and scholars across centuries. As a standalone given name, Tom acquired its own independent identity, projecting a plain-spoken, no-nonsense character that distinguished it from the more formal Thomas.
Several well-known bearers have carried the name across different spheres of American life. Tom Landry (born 1924) was an American football coach and player remembered as the founding head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, where his stoic sideline presence and trademark fedora made him one of the most recognisable figures in American football. Tom Jones (born 1940) is a Welsh singer whose powerful baritone and theatrical stage presence carried him through six decades of pop, rock, country, soul, and gospel recordings. Tom Clancy (born 1947) was an American novelist whose techno-thrillers about military hardware and intelligence operations made him one of the best-selling authors of the late twentieth century. Tom Waits (born 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor known for his gravelly voice and experimental approach to instrumentation. Tom Lehrer is an American satirist, songwriter, and mathematician whose studio albums of the 1950s and 1960s made him one of the best-known musical satirists in the English-speaking world. Tom Osborne is an American football coach whose 25-year tenure at the University of Nebraska produced three national championships.
In US Social Security records, Tom appears in the top-1000 from 1880, with its best rank of #40 recorded that same opening year. It exited the chart in 1962, having accumulated more than 63,000 top-1000 births. Recorded variants include Tommie and Tommy.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Tom
US Popularity History (1880–1962)
Annual US births named Tom by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1959 with 5,068 boys named Tom (boy rank #82 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1962, ranked #98 for boys (4,172 US births). That's 16 places below its 1959 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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Variant Forms
Famous People Named Tom
9 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Tom.
- Tom Clancy — Novelist (1947)
- Tom Jones — Pop Singer (1940)
- Tom Landry — Coach (1924)
- Tom Lehrer is a singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist and mathematician from America, known for his dark humour.
- Tom Osborne is a former American football player, coach and a politician from Nebraska.
- Tom Ridge is an American politician who served as the Governor of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001.
- Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screen writer.
- Tom Waits — Pop Singer (1949)
- Tom Wolfe is a famous American author and journalist.
Looking for names like Tom?
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 Tom to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Tom 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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