Tammy
Feminine diminutive form of the English name Thomasina, of Greek origin meaning "twin".
Name Census estimates that about 282,666 living Americans carry the first name Tammy. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Tammy today is around 58 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Tammy births was 1963 (21,240 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Tammy. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Tammy with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Tammy is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 1,392 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1960s, recent registration numbers for Tammy have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
283K
~ 1 in 1,213 Americans
Peak year
1963
21,240 babies that year
Average age
58
years old
1999 SSA rank
#4,862
Tracked since 1934
Census
Tammy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 277,310 people with the first name Tammy, which placed it at #193 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#193
National first-name rank
People counted
277K
277,310 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
91.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
84.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Tammy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tammy is White at 84.2%. The next largest groups are Black (6.9%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Tammy described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Tammy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White84.2% · 233,423
- Black or African American6.9% · 19,143
- Two or more races3.3% · 9,200
- Hispanic or Latino2.5% · 6,863
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.2% · 6,123
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 2,558
Gender
Gender distribution for Tammy
Out of the 333,366 babies given the name Tammy since 1880, 99.6% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Tammy as a male name
- Ranked #11,407 in 1999
- 5 male births in 1999
- Peak: 1970 (87 births)
Tammy as a female name
- Ranked #4,862 in 2024
- 28 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1963 (21,193 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Tammy appears almost entirely female. Of the 277,310 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Tammy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Tammy from the 1930s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 182,838 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Tammy by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Tammy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Tammys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Ohio, Texas recorded the most babies named Tammy, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 6,468 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Tammy
The name Tammy is an English diminutive form of the feminine given name Thomasina, which ultimately derives from the ancient Aramaic name Thomas, meaning "twin." The name Thomasina itself is a feminine form of the Latin name Thomas, which was derived from the Aramaic name. Tammy emerged as a shortened version of Thomasina in the 19th century.
The earliest recorded use of the name Tammy dates back to the early 1800s in England. One of the earliest known individuals with the name was Tammy Wray, an English writer and novelist born in 1837. She wrote several popular novels during the Victorian era, including "A Daughter of the Philistines" and "A Cruel Dilemma."
Another notable historical figure named Tammy was Tammy Wynette, an American country music singer born in 1942. She was known as the "First Lady of Country Music" and was one of the most influential and successful female country artists of the 20th century. Her hit songs included "Stand by Your Man," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," and "Til I Can Make It on My Own."
In the world of literature, Tammy Greenstone was an American author and journalist born in 1928. She wrote several notable works, including "Where the Wildflowers Grow," a memoir about growing up in the American South during the Great Depression.
Tammy Bakker, born in 1942, was an American Christian evangelist and television personality. She co-founded the Heritage USA Christian theme park and the PTL (Praise the Lord) television network with her husband, Jim Bakker.
Tammy Duckworth is an American politician and former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served as the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district from 2013 to 2017 and has been a U.S. Senator from Illinois since 2017. She was born in 1968.
While the name Tammy was most popular in the mid-20th century, it has a long and rich history dating back to its Aramaic roots and has been borne by notable figures across various fields throughout the centuries.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Tammy
People
Tammy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Tammy as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Tammy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Tammy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 282,666 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Tammy going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,213 US residents.
Is Tammy a common name?
We classify Tammy as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 333,366 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Tammy most popular?
The single biggest year for Tammy was 1963, when 21,240 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Tammy is about 58 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Tammy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 277,310 people with the name Tammy, or 91.82 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #193 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Tammy in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Tammy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Tammy appears almost entirely female. Of the 277,310 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Tammy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tammy is White at 84.2%. The next largest groups are Black (6.9%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Tammy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Tammy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 84.2% (233,423 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Tammy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Tammy a female name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Tammy in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Tammy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Tammy in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Tammy can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Tammy?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.