Tom

118,350 people in America carry this name — ranked #479 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it TAHM

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

T AA1 M — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 118,350 2020 Census
  • Rank #479 Common
  • As a surname 10,364 ranked #3,376 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Tom

Aramaic in origin, reading literally as “twin”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Tom has been given

140,072 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1959, with 5,073 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40s 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1940s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

What goes well after Tom

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Tom Michael — runs together
  • Tom Thomas — same opening
  • Tom Matthew — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Boys or girls: who is called Tom?

99.7% men
410 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 83.6%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 3.4%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 3.7%
  • Two or more races — 1.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 6.7%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.8%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

The same name elsewhere

  • Tome Spanish
  • Toma Ill
  • Tomas Span.|Ill
  • Thoma Wall
  • Tuomas Finn
  • Tomasa Spanish
  • Tomasz Polish
  • Thumas O.|Fr
  • Thomas Fr.|Eng
  • Tommasso Italian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

How to spell Tom

Tom is how 73% of them spell it — 161,939 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Aramaic origin