Description
Thomas is the Aramaic word for “twin” — and the surname carries that doubleness in its bones. It came into Europe through the Greek and Latin New Testament as the name of the Apostle, took its th- from the Greek theta, its plain English t-sound from the French, and spread across Britain on the cult of Thomas Becket after 1170. From “son of Thomas” it became a name with no single bloodline and a thousand beginnings.
The signature story is Seth Thomas, the Connecticut clockmaker whose mass-production methods put a clock in every farmhouse — and whose adopted town of Plymouth Hollow renamed itself Thomaston in his honor in 1875.
Inside: the arms of the name (“Honesty is the best policy”), fifteen remarkable lives — from George Henry Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, to conductor Theodore Thomas, composer Ambroise Thomas, and Dylan Thomas — the places the name built, and the numbers we can stand behind: 4th in Wales in the 19th century and 4th again today, 9th in the United Kingdom, 3rd in France, 16th in the 2010 U.S. Census and just outside the top fifteen in 2020.
The Surname Histories Series traces one family name per volume through etymology, migration, heraldry, famous bearers, and the towns that carry the name — a coffee-table keepsake for anyone who bears the name, past, present, and future, and for all those who love them.
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