Tammy (given name)


Tammy is a feminine given name. It can be a short form of the names Tamsin, Thomasina, Thomasin, Tamar, Tamara, Tamora or other names starting with Tam. Tamsin, Thomasina, and Thomasin are feminine versions of the name Thomas, a Greek form of the Aramaic name Te'oma, meaning twin. Tamara is a Russian form of the Hebrew name Tamar, which means "palm tree". In Israel "Tami" is commonly used as an abbreviation of the original Hebrew name.
Tammy originated as a Scottish nickname for boys named Tàmhas, the Scottish Gaelic version of Thomas. The name was also used in England as a nickname for girls named Tamsin, a shortened version of Thomasina or Thomasin, all feminine versions of Thomas. Tammy was in greatest use in the 19th century in the southwestern English counties of Devon and Cornwall. United States census records show the name was also in rare use for American girls in the 19th century, either as an independent name or as a nickname for Tamsin or for Tamar and its phonetic variants Tama and Tamma. Tamara began to be used in greater numbers in the United States in the 1930s. Tammy as an independent name remained rare in the Anglosphere until the mid-20th century when it gained popularity due to Tammy Tyree, the main character of Cid Ricketts Sumner's 1948 novel Tammy Out of Time about a lovable backwoods girl who falls in love with a plane crash survivor. There were 39 times more American girls named Tammy born in 1958 than there were in 1956. The increase in popularity was due to the 1957 romantic comedy film Tammy and the Bachelor, which was based on Sumner's novel, and the hit song from the film, Tammy. The full name of the book and film character was Tambrey, an invention by Sumner inspired by Ambry, from the 1852 book Lexicon of Ladies' Names With Their Floral Emblems by American Sarah Carter, in which Ambry is said to be derived from the name of the amaranth plant, symbolizing eternal life. The 1957 film was followed by three loosely related films on the same theme in 1961, 1963, and 1967. There was also a 1965 American television series based on the book and movies.
The name peaked in usage in the United States in 1968, when it was the eighth most popular name for newborn American girls. If spelling variants Tami, Tamie, Tammi and Tammie were combined with Tammy, the name would have been the fifth most popular name for American girls in 1968. The name remained well-used throughout the 1970s, 1980s and into the mid-1990s in the United States but has since declined in use. It has not been ranked among the top 1,000 names for girls born in the United States since 1998. It was also the 959th most popular name for boys born between 1960 and 1969 in the United States, but has not appeared among the top 1,000 names for boys there since the 1960s. Tammy was most well used in Australia from 1969 to 1981, in Canada from 1969 to 1982, and in England and Wales from 1996 to 2006.

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