Thomas means “twin” — so give him a story where he’s the one and only

Where the name Thomas comes from

Thomas comes from the Aramaic word t’oma, meaning “twin”. In the Gospels the apostle Thomas is also called Didymus — the Greek word for twin — so his name is effectively given twice in two languages. That apostle became known as “Doubting Thomas” because he refused to believe the news of the resurrection until he could see it with his own eyes. Parents of a curious, show-me-first little boy often find that nickname rather fitting.

The spelling with “Th” comes from Greek and Latin, where the sound was written with the letter theta. English kept the letters but dropped the sound, which is why Thomas is pronounced with a plain T.

In England the name arrived in strength with the Normans after 1066 and spread quickly in the twelfth century, helped by the fame of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral in 1170. Pilgrimages to his shrine — the journey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is built around — kept the name on everyone’s lips for centuries. By the late Middle Ages Thomas sat alongside John and William as one of the most common boys’ names in the country, and “Tom” had become so ordinary that it turned into a byword for any man at all, as in “every Tom, Dick and Harry”.

The name has never really gone out of fashion since. Thomas was a fixture of the top boys’ names in England and Wales through the 1990s and remains a familiar, steady choice today — classic without feeling old-fashioned. Its equivalents are found right across Europe: Tomos in Welsh, Tommaso in Italian, Tomasz in Polish, Thomas unchanged in French and German, so a Thomas will meet namesakes almost anywhere he travels.

Few names have as long a shelf in children’s stories. Tom Thumb, the boy no bigger than his father’s thumb, is one of the oldest English fairy tales to appear in print, and “Tom, Tom, the piper’s son” has been chanted in nurseries for generations. There is even a cat: Beatrix Potter’s Tom Kitten, forever losing his buttons. A Thomas who gets a book of his own is joining a long line of small Toms who had adventures far bigger than themselves — the difference is that this time the hero has his face.

Tom, Tommy and other ways to say Thomas

• Thomas — The full name — for the cover, the dedication and the moments in the story when the narrator wants to sound proud or a little solemn.
• Tom — The everyday short form and one of the oldest English nicknames; it has been used on its own for centuries, from Tom Thumb to Tom Sawyer.
• Tommy — The warm, younger-sounding version that grandparents, siblings and nursery staff tend to reach for.
• Tam — The traditional Scottish form, still heard north of the border and familiar from Robert Burns’s poem “Tam o’ Shanter”.
• Tomos and Twm — The Welsh form and its pet name — a natural choice for a family with Welsh roots.
• Thom — A short form that keeps the h of the full spelling; some families like it precisely because it looks a little different on paper.