Tom
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Tom is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Belgium it is the 36th most common given name. In English, recorded as pet-form of Thomas; first attested William Tom 1245 HPD (Ess).
- NONorway1 in 379(measured from records)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 399
- IEIreland≈1 in 614
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #445 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 633 (measured from records)
- 1 in 379 (inferred from the name graph)
≈920,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Diminutive of Thomas; from Aramaic Ta'oma', meaning 'twin'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
How Tom is read(measured from records)
Tom is one spelling over 2 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.
- English72%
pet-form of Thomas; first attested William Tom 1245 HPD (Ess)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
The male of the domesticated cat, especially if not neutered.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French8.4%
Diminutive of Thomas; from Aramaic Ta'oma', meaning 'twin'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
French overseas territory
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Diminutif de Thomas, « jumeau »; forme courte employée comme prénom.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Tom 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈920,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Tom | 83 |
| US United States | #210 | 118,350 | 1 in 2.8K | 118K | Tom | 633 |
| GB United Kingdom | #143 | ≈85,000 est. | ≈1 in 772 | 4 | Tom | 389 |
| FR France | — | ≈67,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 93K | Tom | 16 |
| DE Germany | #263 | ≈62,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Tom | 273 |
| AU Australia | #158 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 761 | 60 | Tom | 322 |
| BE Belgium | #36 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 399 | 15 | Tom | 196 |
| NO Norway | #42 | 14,413 | 1 in 379 | 39K | Tom | 143 |
| IE Ireland | #84 | ≈8,400 est. | ≈1 in 614 | 163 | Tom | 165 |
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; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present). 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)
Tom is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Short form of Thomas, in use since the Middle Ages, and recorded as an independent name since the 18th century.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
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)
- Tom Wolfeb. 1930USAmerican author and journalist (1930–2018)
- Tom Atkinsb. 1935USAmerican actor
- Tom Noonanb. 1951USAmerican actor, director, and screenwriter (1951-2026)
- Tom Shadyacb. 1958USAmerican film director
- Tom Sizemoreb. 1961USAmerican actor (1961–2023)
- Tom Hooperb. 1972GBBritish-Australian filmmaker
- Tom Lenkb. 1976USAmerican actor
- Tom Ellisb. 1978GBWelsh actor
- Tom Heatonb. 1986GBEnglish association football player
- Tom Feltonb. 1987GBBritish actor, singer and musician
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 127 sources across 63 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 118K | #479 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 93K | #36 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 39K | #90 |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 14K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 410 | #479 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 163 | #38 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 65 | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2006 | 60 | — |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
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 Tom come from?
- Diminutive of Thomas; from Aramaic Ta'oma', meaning 'twin'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Tom a male or female name?
- Tom is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Tom have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 923 thousand people named Tom in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tom.
- Where is Tom most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Tom is densest in Norway — about 1 in 379 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Tom?
- In the etymology graph, Tommy, Tommie and Tomi are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Thomas.
- How common is the name Tom?
- In the United States, the national register counted 118,350 people named Tom in 2020, about 1 in 2.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Tom compared with other names?
- In Belgium, Tom is the 36th most common given name of 59,589 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Tom mean?
- In English, pet-form of Thomas; first attested William Tom 1245 HPD (Ess)
What do you want to know about Tom?
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/tomThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Tom” — the 36th most common given name in Belgium. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.