Tham
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Vietnamese: to covet, to be greedy, to lust after
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/tʰam˧˧/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Tham is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 310K(measured from records)
- ISIceland1 in 175K
- DKDenmark1 in 451K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 245 (measured from records)
- 1 in 175K (inferred from the name graph)
1,072 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Iceland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Initialism of tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane, alternative form of tris.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
How Tham is read(measured from records)
Tham is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Vietnamese66%
to covet, to be greedy, to lust after
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English16%
Initialism of tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane, alternative form of tris.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Malay8.7%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Tham in Malay.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tham counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
1,072 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Tham is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Khmer, to be stingy, miserly; to tighten up on one’s spending
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In enm, alternative spelling of þam (“them”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In aot, three
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pbv, crab
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Shen Yueb. 441CNnot in their usual nameChinese poet, statesman, and historian (441–513)
- Shen Kuob. 1031CNnot in their usual nameChinese scientist and statesman (1031-1095)
- Shen Zhoub. 1427CNnot in their usual nameChinese painter (1427-1509)
- Mao Dunb. 1896CNnot in their usual nameChinese writer (1896-1981)
- Xia Yanb. 1900CNnot in their usual nameChinese playwright (1900-1995)
- Shen Congwenb. 1902CNnot in their usual nameChinese writer (1902–1988)
- Thẩm Thúy Hằngb. 1940VNVietnamese actress
- Lydia Shumb. 1945CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong comedian and actress (1945–2008)
- Freda Foh Shenb. 1948USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Shen Yueyueb. 1957CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 32 sources across 17 countries.
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Tham come from?
- Initialism of tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane, alternative form of tris. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Tham?
- A machine transcription gives /tʰam˧˧/ (IPA) for Vietnamese.
- What does the name Tham mean?
- In Vietnamese, to covet, to be greedy, to lust after
- Is Tham a male or female name?
- Tham is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Tham have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.1 thousand people named Tham, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tham.
- Where is Tham most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Tham is densest in Iceland — about 1 in 175 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Tham?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,072 people named Tham in 2020, about 1 in 310 thousand residents.
- How common is Tham compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Tham is the 985th most common given name of 52,448 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Tham?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/thamThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Tham” — the 985th most common given name in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.