The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-02

The names considered today:-Talia- ferro, Teller, Telford, Thomas. ThoHip- son. Tome. Toombs. TreveIyan. Trew' Triggs.
 Toombs, Tome and Thompson.
 These are equivalent patronymics signifying "the son of Thomas
 The personal name Thomas comes to us in this Graecized form from the Aramaic name or surname of the Apos- tie. This was adopted into the Latin and thence into Angio-Saxon. The latter also naturaiized 1t as Temus. The moot frequent hypocoristic form or nurse-name of this is Tom, whence the common patronymics Toms, Tom- son and Toml<in. etc.
 The 70" in the original Greek. Latin and AngIo-Saxon Thomas and the early English Tomus was long. Consequent Iy the abbreviated Tom was originally pronounced with the %" long. The natural tendency in our language to shorten long vowel thus situated gave us our Tom with Che 70" short and also led to attempts to preserve the original pronunciation. The most common way of doing this is to indi- cate the long sound by the addition of a final "e." Thus we distinguish between hat and hate. met and mete, pin and pine, not and note, tun and tune, etc. Similarly we have Tome to preserve the long 70" of Tom. This Thick name." as we rather improperly call such forms, became itself a patronymic and served as . base to form other patronymics. Hence, for instance, Tones. by the addition of . genitival "s."
 Another device to preserve the long soGnd of the Co" in rom was to dou- ble the letter. Hence we have the patronymics Toom and Tooms. prob ably both obsolete in these particular forms. From Tooms, however, with the rather common intrusion of a 'sb'' after the '.m'' we get the surname Toombs. Similarly the older Toms gave Tombs. still far more frequent both in England and America than ToonnbB.
 rom again is naturally the parent of Tomson and Tomkin. These fre- quently admit an intrusive ep." which Is really "bs sharpened or assimi- lated before the sharp sound of 'k'' or ,'s" that follows. Hence Tompson and Tompkin. Later the latter adds another patronymic sufnx and gives rise to the double patronymics Tomp- kins and Tompkinson.
 Another old hypocoristic form of Thomas was Thom. From this by similar processes grew the patronymic Burnames Thorn. Thon1s. Thome. Thomes, Thomson, Thompson.
 We have still many other native patronymics from Thomas, such Z. as Thomas itself, Thomson, Thomasson, ThomassIri, Thomasin, Thomeson, Thomasset, Thomsett. Thomerson, Thomlin, ThomlInson. Tomalin, Tomlin, Tomlins, Tomlinson, Tomlyn, Tomlyns. Tonalynson, Tomblin, Tomblinson, Tom- bleson, Tomkiss. Tomsett, Tompsett. Towson, Townson. Tam. Tamlin. Tam lyn, Tamblyn, Tamplin. Tams. Tamson, and still others. If we should enum- crate the many foreign equivalents brought to our shores by immigration our list would be several times as hong. Yet Thomas Is not one of the most prolific names in our nomencla. lure. Richard. Peter, Hugh, William ana several others outstrip it in form- ing patronymics.
 The story of Thenaas.
 The Arauaaic Tanma which the Greek turned into Thomas Is defined for ui hv the Eyangelist John (xi, IS; xx. 24 xxf. 2l: a@Thomas, which is called Didymus." Dfdymus is Greek and means twin This Is the meaning ol the name Thomas. The Hebrew origi nal is found in Genesis XIV 24 and xxxvtiI 27 and in Canticles iv. 5 and vii, 8, always in the plural.
 one tradition makes the Apostle Thomas the twin brother of a sistel Isysia, another of a brother Elieser but the tradition most widely spread Taakes him a twin of Jesus himself This is the account given by the Gnos. lis and apocryphal Adta Thomae. Int same; source together with the Syriat Doctrina Apostolorum and the Edes sene legend preserved in Eusebius (H