Thomason
A patronymic surname meaning “son of Thomas.”
The #1,751 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 15,077 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Thomason is an English surname built from the personal name Thomas plus the son-forming suffix -son. Thomas ultimately comes from the Aramaic name Ta'oma, meaning “twin,” which entered English through Greek and Latin and became very common after the medieval period. In other words, Thomason originally meant “Thomas’s son.”
History
The name appears in English records as one of several medieval and later spellings built from Thomas, alongside Thomson, Thompson, Thomlinson, and related forms. Historical surname writers treated it as a straightforward baptismal patronymic, and they also noted that forms like Thomasin or Tomasson could merge into the modern spelling. Today it is much less common than Thompson or Thomson, but it remains established in Britain and North America.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th- and early 20th-century surname dictionaries often grouped Thomason with a whole family of Thomas-derived names, showing how many different spellings grew from one very popular medieval given name.
From the historical record
“suff. -in. THOMASON, Thomas's Son: v. Thomas. THOMASSET=Thoma8 (q.v.) = the Fr. dim. suff. -et. THOMASSIN = Thomas (q.v.) + the Fr. dim. suff. -in. THOMASSON i ^ Thomas's Son : v. Thomas. 2 = Thomas (q.v.) + the Fr. dim.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)