Tommye

History & Origin

Tommye takes the familiar short form of Thomas — from Aramaic te'oma, 'twin' — and dresses it with a decorative -ye ending to mark a girl. This was a real regional pattern in the American South, where men's diminutives such as Tommie, Johnnie and Willie were commonly registered as feminine given names.

As a girl's name Tommye rose in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, crested in the early forties, and had faded by the late seventies. It remains firmly a period piece rather than a revival candidate, though the parent Thomas is perennial.