Thomas (name)
Encyclopedia
Thomas is a masculine given name
. It is based on the Biblical Greek , which is itself a transcription of the Aramaic
"twin
", the Hebrew
cognate being .
In the New Testament
the designation was applied to Judas Thomas, the second Judas of the Apostles (hence his appellation "twin").
The name has been comparatively widespread in Europe since the High Middle Ages
.
"Tom
" or "Thom" are abbreviations of Thomas, and "Tommy" is a common variant; "Tam" is a common abbreviation used in Scotland
. The name is sometimes abbreviated as "Thos" in signatures.
Feminine versions of this name are Thomasina
, Tamsyn, Tamsin, Tasmina, Tasmino, or Tammy.
(Cephas) "the rock", Didymos or Thomas "the twin" is not in origin a given name but an epithet of a New Testament character. The given name of Thomas the Apostle
was Yehuda (Jude, Judas).
Use as a given name originates in the Early Middle Ages
.
Early known bearers of this name are Thomas the Presbyter
(7th century) and Thomas the Slav
(8th century).
The name becomes more common during the High Middle Ages, with notable bearers including Thomas of Bayeux (d. 1100), Thomas of Britain
(12th century), Thomas the Archdeacon
(1200-1268), Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1270).
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
. It is based on the Biblical Greek , which is itself a transcription of the Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
"twin
Twin
A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can either be monozygotic , meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic because they develop from two separate eggs that are fertilized by two separate sperm.In contrast, a fetus...
", the Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
cognate being .
In the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
the designation was applied to Judas Thomas, the second Judas of the Apostles (hence his appellation "twin").
The name has been comparatively widespread in Europe since the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
.
"Tom
Tom (name)
Tom is a diminutive of Thomas.Notable people who use the diminutive include:* Tom Anderson , American MySpace co-creator* Tom Baker, British actor, the Fourth Doctor Who* Tom Brady, American football player for the New England Patriots...
" or "Thom" are abbreviations of Thomas, and "Tommy" is a common variant; "Tam" is a common abbreviation used in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The name is sometimes abbreviated as "Thos" in signatures.
Feminine versions of this name are Thomasina
Thomasina
Thomasina or Thomasine is the feminine form of the given name Thomas, which means "twin".Thomasina is often shortened to Tamsin. Tamsin can be used as a name in itself; variants of Tamsin include Tamsyn, Tamzin, Tamsen, Tammi and Tamasin. Although Aramaic in origin, the version "Tamsin" is...
, Tamsyn, Tamsin, Tasmina, Tasmino, or Tammy.
People called Thomas
Like PetrosPeter (given name)
Peter is a common masculine given name. It is derived, via Latin "petra", from the Greek word πέτρος meaning "stone" or "rock"....
(Cephas) "the rock", Didymos or Thomas "the twin" is not in origin a given name but an epithet of a New Testament character. The given name of Thomas the Apostle
Thomas the Apostle
Thomas the Apostle, also called Doubting Thomas or Didymus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He is best known for questioning Jesus' resurrection when first told of it, then proclaiming "My Lord and my God" on seeing Jesus in . He was perhaps the only Apostle who went outside the Roman...
was Yehuda (Jude, Judas).
Use as a given name originates in the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
.
Early known bearers of this name are Thomas the Presbyter
Thomas the Presbyter
Thomas the Presbyter was a 7th century Middle Eastern Jacobite author of anti-chalcedonian Syriac writings whose manuscripsts are preserved in the British library of Syriac Manuscripts....
(7th century) and Thomas the Slav
Thomas the Slav
Thomas the Slav was a 9th-century Byzantine military commander, most notable for leading a wide-scale revolt against Emperor Michael II the Amorian in 820–823....
(8th century).
The name becomes more common during the High Middle Ages, with notable bearers including Thomas of Bayeux (d. 1100), Thomas of Britain
Thomas of Britain
Thomas of Britain was a french poet of the 12th century. He is known for his Old French poem Tristan, a version of the Tristan and Iseult legend that exists only in eight fragments, amounting to around 3,300 lines of verse, mostly from the latter part of the story...
(12th century), Thomas the Archdeacon
Thomas the Archdeacon
Thomas the Archdeacon was a medieval Dalmatian historian and Archdeacon of Split most remembered for Historia Salonitana, a chronicle of the Bishops and Archbishops of Split until 1266....
(1200-1268), Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
(1225-1270).
Variants
The Biblical has given rise to a large variety of spellings and forms in numerous languages.- Afrikaans: Thomas, Tom, Tomas, Thom, Tommie (Touma, Tūmā)
- ArmenianArmenian languageThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
: Թովմաս (Tovmas) - BelarusianBelarusian languageThe Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
: Тамаш (Tamash) - BretonBreton languageBreton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
: Tomaz - BulgarianBulgarian languageBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
: Тома (Toma) - CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
: Tomàs - ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
: 多馬 (Duoma, Biblical), 湯瑪斯 (Tangmasi, general translation), 湯瑪士 (Tangmashi), 托馬斯 (Tuomasi) - CroatianCroatian languageCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
: Tomislav, Tomo, Tome, Tomica, Toma - CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
: Tomáš, Tom - DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: Thomas - DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Thomas, Tom, Tomas, Thom, Tommie - EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: Thomas, Tom, Thom, Tommy, Thommie, Tomas, Tomm - EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
: ToomasToomasToomas is an Estonian masculine given name, a version of Thomas.People named Toomas include:*Toomas Altnurme , painter*Toomas Frey , ecologist, geobotanist and forest scientist*Toomas Helin , drug smuggler... - FaroeseFaroese languageFaroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
: Tummas - FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Tuomas - FilipinoFilipino languageThis move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
: Tomas - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Thomas - GalicianGalician languageGalician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
: Tomé - GeorgianGeorgian languageGeorgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
: თომა (Toma) - GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Thomas, Tom, Tommi - GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, polytonic: (Thōmâs) = monotonic Θωμάς (Thomás) (Saint Thomas also: (Didymos, "twin")), Τουμάζος (Toumazos) - HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
: Tamás - IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
: Tómas - IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
: Tomo, Tuma - IrishIrish languageIrish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
: Tomás, Tommy, Tomaltach - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: Tommaso (also sometimes Tomaso) - JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
: トーマス (Tomasu) - KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
: 도마 (Doma; Toma; biblical), 토머스 (Tomeoseu; T'omŏsŭ) - Latin: Thomas (Saint Thomas also: Didymus)
- LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
: Toms - LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
: Tomas - MacedonianMacedonian languageMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
: Томислав, Τоми, Томо, Томас, Τоме - MalayalamMalayalam languageMalayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
: തോമാ (Thoma), തോമാസ് (Thomas), തൊമ്മന് (Thommen), ഉമ്മന് (Oommen), തൊമ്മി (Thommy), ടോമി (Tommy), ടോം (Tom) ,തൊമ്മിച്ചന് (Thommichan), തോമാച്ചന് (Thomaachan), തൊമ്മച്ചന് (Thommachan) - MaoriMaori languageMāori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
: Tamihana - MalteseMaltese languageMaltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic...
: Tumas - NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
: Thomas, Tomas, Tom - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Tomasz, Tomek - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: Thomaz, Tomaz, Tomás, Tomé - PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
: توماسپ (Tomasp) - RomaniRomani languageRomani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
:Tomašis - RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: Toma, Tomescu - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Фома́ (written: Foma, pronounced: Famá) - SamoanSamoan languageSamoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...
: Tomasi - Scottish GaelicScottish Gaelic languageScottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
: Tòmas - ScotsScots languageScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
: Tam - SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Тома (Toma) - SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
: Tomáš - SlovenianSlovenian languageSlovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
: Tomaž - SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: Tomás - SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Tomas, Thomas, Tom, Tommy - SyriacSyriac languageSyriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
: ܬܐܘܡܐ Tauma or ܬܘܡܐ Toma - ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
: โทมัส (To-mus) - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Tomas - UkrainianUkrainian languageUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Хома́ (Choma) - WelshWelsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
: Tomos
As a surname
- Thompson, MacThomas: Mac Thòmais or Sloichd Adhamh Mhor Mhic Uilleam, descended from Clan Chattan Mackintoshes
- Sept name of MacTamhais/MacTavish
- McCombie: Mac Thomaidh (Son of 'Tommy', diminutive).
- Hosier, MacLehose, Mucklehose: MacIlleThòmhais (Son or servant of St. Thomas).