Welsh2 syllablesBiblical source
Meaning: twin — the Welsh spelling of Thomas.
Tomos
| Origin | Welsh form of Thomas, taken in from the church in the Middle Ages and respelled to Welsh rules |
|---|---|
| Meaning | “Twin”, from Aramaic te'oma by way of Greek Thomas. It began as the apostle's byname rather than his given name |
| Pronunciation | TOM-os. Welsh stress falls on the second-from-last syllable, so it is never to-MOS, and the final o stays a full round vowel where English lets Thomas fade to a schwa |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100; the Welsh spelling barely registers in America. In Wales it is one of the standard Welsh-language spellings for a boy and has been for decades |
| Variants | Thomas, Tomas, Tomás, Tommaso, Twm |
| Nicknames | Twm, said TOOM — the Welsh equivalent of Tom, and a name in its own right |
| Name day | 3 July, St Thomas the Apostle |
History & meaning
The name is Aramaic before it is anything else: te'oma, twin, applied as a byname to the apostle who wanted to see the wounds. Greek made it Thomas, Latin carried it across Europe, and medieval Wales took it in along with the rest of the church calendar. What Wales did next is the interesting part. Welsh spelling is phonetic and Welsh th is a real sound — the th of “thin” — so writing Thomas in Welsh would produce the wrong name entirely. Out went the h, and Tomos is the result: not a nickname, not a variant spelling adopted for flavour, but the name written so that a Welsh reader says it correctly.
The short form went further than the long one. Twm is Welsh for Tom, and two of the best-known Twms in Welsh tradition are real men. Twm Siôn Cati, traditionally identified with Thomas Jones of Tregaron who died around 1609, was a gentleman genealogist whom later folklore turned into the Welsh Robin Hood, complete with a cave above the Tywi. Twm o'r Nant was Thomas Edwards (1739–1810), a carter from Denbighshire who wrote the interlude plays performed at fairs across north Wales and became, by common consent, the finest popular dramatist the language has produced. For younger Welsh speakers the spelling arrives another way: Tomos y Tanc, the S4C dub of Thomas the Tank Engine, has been on television for over thirty years.
Why parents choose it
It gets you Thomas without getting you Thomas. The name is instantly familiar to everyone, the child never has to spell out a legend or a mountain, and the single missing letter tells anyone who reads it which country the family belongs to.
Middle names for Tomos
Front-stressed and ending in a hiss, Tomos wants a middle that starts with a strong consonant and does not repeat the s: Tomos Rhys, Tomos Llewelyn, Tomos Idris, Tomos Cai. The middle names guide has more on ending-and-beginning collisions.
Famous Tomoses
Tomos Williams, the scrum-half capped by Wales, has kept the Welsh spelling on team sheets throughout his career. Historically the bearers are the Twms above, and the apostle stands behind all of them. For the wider cast of Thomases, see Thomas.
Consider instead
Thomas is the same name with the international passport. Tommaso does in Italian what Tomos does in Welsh. Ifan pulls the same trick on John, arriving through Ieuan and giving Wales its Evans. Start at Welsh names for the rest of the family.