Thomas

Thomas is the 16th most common surname in the United States, shared by 734,345 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 407.

By the numbers

People: 734,345
Rank: 16th
How common: 1 in 407
Per 100,000: 245.7

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

from Latin Thōmās (as in the Vulgate), from Ancient Greek Θωμᾶς, the Biblical Greek transcription of Aramaic תאומא or תאמא (“twin”), the nickname of one of the Twelve Apostles.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 49.7%
Black, not Hispanic 37.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.8%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 3.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.0%

Notable people called Thomas

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)Welsh poet and writer
E. Donnall Thomas (1920–2012)American hematologist
Clarence Thomas (born 1948)Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991
Isiah Thomas (born 1961)American basketball player, coach, executive
Geraint Thomas (born 1986)Welsh racing cyclist
Michael Roger Oldfield Thomas (1858–1929)British mammalogist
Emma Thomas (born 1971)British film producer
Helen Thomas (1920–2013)American author and journalist

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

Surnames like Thomas

Also a first name

Thomas has been given to 2,367,087 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1952. 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.