Humanverse

Tom vs Tomas

American parents have registered 140,370 Toms since 1880, against 30,730 Tomases. But in 2025 it was Tomas that was commoner, 394 babies to 65.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tom against Tomas, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tom Tomas

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Tom for 98 years and Tomas for 48 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Tom Tomas
Total US births 140,37030,730
Most in one year 5,080537
Babies in 2025 65394
Estimated living today 66,00025,000
Median age today 6529
Peak year 19592003
Best rank 82nd boys468th boys
Rank in 2025 2,183rd691st
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 614 / 139,75627 / 30,703

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Toms alive today are over 65; half the Tomases are over 29. That is 36 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Tom Tomas
France 94,5202,145
Norway 16,3183,222
England and Wales 9,8534,335
Belgium 8,598663
Ireland 3,5753,135
Switzerland 1,759877 Tomás
Northern Ireland 1,094513
Scotland 1,071195
Poland 163182

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Tom and Tomas.