Thomas

Thomas comes into Greek as Θωμᾶς, and the meaning behind it is twin. The Gospel of John makes this plain: it hands the apostle a second name, Didymus, the ordinary Greek word for twin. Here the meaning and the origin agree from the start. A boy called Thomas holds, inside his name, the idea of a matched pair.

Most people first meet the name through that apostle. He wanted to touch the wounds before he would believe, and readers have called him Doubting Thomas ever since. The label stuck fast. Still, the meaning fixed to the name stays twin, and Didymus keeps saying so.

In a Polish class register the name settles in near the December imieniny. The origin is Greek. The meaning is twin.