Tam

given name · Vietnamese · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Tam is a given name, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom. It appears chiefly in Vietnamese and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Clipping of tam o'shanter, a type of cap.

rarermore common
  • HKHong Kong1 in 3.2K◐
  • AUAustralia1 in 12K
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 18K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈6.6K ●

across 8 countries

Sources
358 ●

340K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 25K ◐

Iceland

Meaning & origin●

Clipping of tam o'shanter, a type of cap.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Tam is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GB United Kingdom—11,33915K rec.—listedTam113
AU Australia#9339,49817K rec.—3Tam161
US United States—6,243262K rec.1 in 53K13KTam358
CA Canada—4,05912K rec.—6Tam155
DE Germany—2,2893K rec.—1Tam80
MY Malaysia—1,9533.3K rec.——Tam72
IT Italy—1,3311.6K rec.——Tam28
HK Hong Kong#1801,1465.3K rec.——Tam113
PH Philippines—8222.4K rec.——Tam47
CN China—6741.2K rec.——Tam66
RU Russia—621849 rec.——Tam18
SE Sweden—213△101 rec.1 in 48K213—12

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Vietnamese294K49%
  • English205K34%
  • 21K4%
  • Spanish15K3%
  • Chinese5K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Vietnamese293,56049%
English205,35434%
21,3524%
Spanish15,0583%
Chinese5,0281%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Tam is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Vietnamese given name341K records spelled Tam16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, United States, Canada, United Kingdom

    Also written Tâm, Tám, Tấm, Tầm, Tằm

  • a separate given name92K records spelled Tam32 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Tâm, Tám, Tàm, ̴t̶â̴m, Tẩm

  • a separate given name28K records spelled Tam5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Tâm, Tà̂m, Tām, Tám

  • Hindi given name9.9K records spelled Tam11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Tâm, Tấm, Tầm, Täm, Tám

  • French given name9.8K records spelled Tam11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Belgium

    Also written Tâm, Tàm, Tãm, Tām, Tám

  • Hindi given name8.9K records spelled Tam52 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Indonesian

    Also written Tamu, Tamo, Tome, Tumu, Tom

72 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Tam is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Vietnamese, younger sibling

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • .““ Tam B là ba. Không có biểu hiện A theo nghĩa số lượng, có thể có biểu hiện theo nghĩa trật tự:

    as a nameMẹo giải nghĩa từ Hán Việt và chữa lỗi chính tả

  • Plg. Tamošiūnas (žr.)

    as a nameLietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

  • Scottish short form of )\Thomas.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In cau-lzg-pro, 1 vein 2 sinew, tendon 3 cramp 4 tenacity 5 power

    as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

02040601940196019802000202046 · 1982

Show as table
Tam in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1924–2025
Yearrecords
19245
19295
19445
19465
19475
19487
19499
19515
195213
19535
19548
195512
195614
195720
195834
195937
196024
196117
196225
196329
196414
19656
196612
19675
196811
19727
19736
19746
197512
197620
19777
19788
197919
198020
198131
198246
198333
198441
198535
198633
198733
198826
198935
199036
199129
199230
199328
199420
199528
199620
199712
199820
199917
200016
200119
200221
200314
200419
200518
200614
200719
200819
200914
201017
201111
201211
201311
201412
201510
201611
201710
201812
20198
202011
20216
20225
20239
20246
20255

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 79 years between 1924–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1700180019002000Prince Sanggye, b. 1769Nhất Linh, b. 1906Tam Galbraith, b. 1917Tam Dalyell, b. 1932Tam Paton, b. 1938Tam White, b. 1942Tam O'Shaughnessy, b. 1952Mỹ Tâm, b. 1981Tam Courts, b. 1981Tam Nakano, b. 1988
  • Prince Sanggyeb. 1769not in their usual nameKorean prince (1769–1786)
  • Nhất Linhb. 1906VNnot in their usual nameVietnamese writer (1906-1963)
  • Tam Galbraithb. 1917GBScottish politician (1917-1982)
  • Tam Dalyellb. 1932GBScottish politician (1932-2017)
  • Tam Patonb. 1938GBBritish businessman (1938-2009)
  • Tam Whiteb. 1942GBScottish singer-actor (1942-2010)
  • Tam O'Shaughnessyb. 1952USAmerican educator, children's science writer, professional tennis player
  • Mỹ Tâmb. 1981VNVietnamese singer-songwriter
  • Tam Courtsb. 1981GBScottish footballer and manager (born 1981)
  • Tam Nakanob. 1988JPJapanese professional wrestler

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 60 sources across 27 countries.

Official registers attesting Tam
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201013K#2,703
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202013K#2,659
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200012K#2,723
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20206.2K#2,164
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20206.1K#2,164
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—730#6,960
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—230#4,314
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—218#2,163
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—213#5,002
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)2007206#10,106
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—132#4,554
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—113#4,834

Reference works 9

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
  • Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
  • Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 309 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Tam?
We estimate roughly 6.6 thousand people bear Tam (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Tam have the most bearers?
Tam is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled tam.
How common is Tam compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Tam is the 180th most common given name of 19,389 given names recorded there.
Is Tam a male or female name?
Tam is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What does the name Tam mean?
Recorded meaning: Clipping of tam o'shanter, a type of cap.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tam

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Tam” — the 180th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Tam parses inside a full name →