Tam

Tam is the 2,659th most common surname in the United States, shared by 13,232 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 22,600.

By the numbers

People: 13,232
Rank: 2,659th
How common: 1 in 22,600
Per 100,000: 4.4

Where the name comes from

Borrowed from yue, yue, etc.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Tam described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 88.6%
White, not Hispanic 5.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.9%
Hispanic or Latino 1.9%
Black, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.04%

Notable people called Tam

Alan Tam (born 1950)Hong Kong singer and actor
Mỹ Tâm (born 1981)Vietnamese singer-songwriter
Patrick Tam (born 1969)Hong Kong singer and actor
Roman Tam (1945–2002)Hong Kong singer

People named Tam with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Tam

Also a first name

Tam has been given to 1,889 American babies as a first name since 1924, peaking in 1982. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.