Thomson
24,308 people in the United States were counted with the surname Thomson in the 2020 census, making it the 1,427th most common in the country. That is about one person in 12,300.
By the numbers
- People
- 24,308
- Rank
- 1,427th
- How common
- 1 in 12,300
- Per 100,000
- 8.1
Where the name comes from
Origin a given name
From originally meaning "son of Thomas". In some instances of people so named. Also an anglicisation of the Gaelic name MacTamhais, meaning "son of Thomas". Many with the name MacTavish changed their name to Thomson and Thompson after Culloden. Being derived from Thomas ultimately gives this surname an Aramaic derivation - teoma 'twin'.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Thomson described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Thomson
- Joseph John Thomson (1856–1940)British physicist
- William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907)British physicist and engineer
- George Paget Thomson (1892–1975)English physicist
- James Thomson (1700–1748)Scottish writer
- Elihu Thomson (1853–1937)American inventor
- Mick Thomson (born 1973)American guitarist
- Virgil Thomson (1896–1989)American composer and critic
- Judith Jarvis Thomson (1929–2020)American philosopher
People named Thomson with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Thomson
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.