How popular is the baby name Tom in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Tom.

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Popularity of the baby name Tom


Posts that mention the name Tom

English family with 13 children

kinderfest

Recently I’ve written about the 16-child Radford family and the 14-child Watson family.

Here’s one more for you: the 13-child Shaw family, “the largest [family] in the UK where all the kids have the same parents and are in the same home.”

Tom and Stacy Shaw live in Nottingham with their 13 kids, named…

  1. Shannon, 16
  2. Adam, 15
  3. Ryan, 14
  4. Kelsey, 13
  5. Franky, 11
  6. Leo, 10
  7. Laura, 9
  8. Keenan, 8
  9. Cody, 7
  10. Madison, 6
  11. Kaydn, 5
  12. Tyler, 3
  13. Keavy, 2

Which of the 13 names is your favorite?

Source: Meet Britain’s Biggest Family

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus

Where did the baby name Lestat come from in 1995?

The character Lestat from the movie "Interview with the Vampire" (1994)
Lestat from “Interview with the Vampire“

Novelist Anne Rice created the aristocratic, arrogant vampire Lestat de Lioncourt for her 1976 debut novel Interview with the Vampire.

How did she come up with his name?

I’d thought Lestat was an old Louisiana name. I was so certain that I didn’t bother to look it up. I learned later that the name was actually Lestan. Was that a Freudian slip or what?

(Freudian slip because she’d based the character on her husband Stan.)

In late 1994, the movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire was released. In the film, Lestat was played by actor Tom Cruise.

And in 1995, right on cue, the name Lestat debuted in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1997: 10 baby boys with the name Lestat
  • 1996: 7 baby boys with the name Lestat
  • 1995: 5 baby boys with the name Lestat [debut]
  • 1994: unlisted
  • 1993: unlisted

Since then, hundreds of U.S. baby boys have been named Lestat. And records show that many others got Lestat as a middle name.

What are your thoughts on the name Lestat?

Source: Kellerman, Stewart. “Other Incarnations of the Vampire Author.” New York Times 7 Nov. 1988, C15-16.

Where did the baby name Tunney come from in 1926?

American boxer Gene Tunney (1897-1978)
Gene Tunney

The name Tunney was being used often enough in the 1920s to register in the U.S. baby name data for three years straight:

  • 1929: unlisted
  • 1928: 9 baby boys named Tunney
  • 1927: 23 baby boys named Tunney
  • 1926: 8 baby boys named Tunney [debut]
  • 1925: unlisted

The variant spelling Tunny also popped up just once, in 1927.

Where did these names come from?

Professional boxer James Joseph “Gene” Tunney, who held the World Heavyweight title from 1926 to 1928.

He won the title by defeating Jack Dempsey in 1926, retained the title by defeating Dempsey again in 1927 (in a famous match now known as “The Long Count Fight”), and retired in 1928 after defeating Tom Heeney of New Zealand.

Gene Tunney in the movie serial "The Fighting Marine" (1926)
Gene Tunney in “The Fighting Marine“

Another factor that could have influenced the name in 1926 was the 10-episode film serial The Fighting Marine, which starred Tunney. (Tunney had served as a Marine during World War I.)

The Irish surname Tunney is ultimately based on the personal name Tonnach, which may have meant either “billowy” or “shining.”

What do you think of Tunney as a baby name?

Sources:

P.S. In the 1952 movie Sailor Beware, the characters played by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had a short conversation in which they mixed up the similar names of boxer Gene Tunney and actress Gene Tierney — who was not behind the debut of the baby name Tierney, incidentally.

Top cat names in the Late Middle Ages: Gib and Tib

In England during the Late Middle Ages, the most common names for cats were Gib (pronounced with a hard g) and Tib.

Typically, Gib was used for male cats and Tib for female cats.

Gib is a diminutive of the name Gilbert. Tib is either a play on Gib or a short form of Tibert, as in Tibert the Cat, a feline character found in Reynard the Fox stories.

Geoffrey Chaucer mentions a cat named Gibbe in his The Romaunt of the Rose, written in the late 1300s.

The play Gammer Gurton’s Needle, written during the 1550s, features a (female) cat named Gib:

My nee’le, alas! Ich lost it, Hodge, what time Ich me up-hasted
To save the milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted.

The name Gib was so ubiquitous that male cats were called Gib-cats. We might still be using that term today if not for “The Life and Adventures of a Cat” (1760), a popular tale that featured a cat named Tom. Tom inspired the term Tom-cat, which eventually replaced Gib-cat.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Cats August 2010-2 by Alvesgaspar under CC BY-SA 3.0.