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Tammi

Girls' name

Variant of Tammy; meanings depend on the longer name

Tammi has been given to 13,884 babies in the U.S. since 1950. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1968, with 873 recorded.

Babies named Tammi, 2013

1 in 608,000

Tammi over time, 1880–2025

Girls
02505007501K18801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Tammi: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Tammy; meanings depend on the longer name

English; Finnish surname Tammi has a separate origin

About Tammi

Tammi is a spelling of Tammy, a familiar English name associated with longer names beginning with Tam-. Singer Tammi Terrell is its best-known musical bearer, and her own birth name, Thomasina, illustrates one route into the short form. The spelling's strongest American period came in the late 1960s.

Origin and related names

Tammy and Tammi can come from Tamara, Tamsin, or Thomasina. Those longer names do not all have the same origin, so Tammi has no single inherited meaning that applies to every use. It is also used independently as a given name.

Tamara belongs to the Tamar family, while Tamsin and Thomasina belong to the Thomas family. Tammi keeps their shared opening and replaces the longer endings with ee. Tami and Tammie are other spellings in the same group.

The Finnish surname Tammi has a separate history, coming from the Finnish word for “oak.” That surname should be distinguished from the English given name and its affectionate short forms.

Tammi Terrell and Motown

Tammi Terrell was born Thomasina Montgomery and performed under the names Tommie Montgomery and Tammi Montgomery before adopting the name associated with her Motown career. Berry Gordy suggested Terrell as her professional surname.

She signed with Motown in 1965 and became a celebrated duet partner of Marvin Gaye. Their albums included United in 1967, You're All I Need in 1968, and Easy in 1969. The combination of their voices gave Tammi a lasting association with the label's soul recordings.

Her career also included solo work, including the album Irresistible. The musical connection is especially useful to the name's story because it preserves an actual example of Thomasina becoming Tammi, rather than merely a possible shortening suggested after the fact.

A name in children's books

Picture-book author Tammi Sauer is another bearer. Her books include Mary Had a Little Glam, Your Alien, and Lovebird Lou. She has written across a substantial range of picture books, giving Tammi a continuing presence on bookshelves for young readers.

The literary and musical connections belong to different generations and different kinds of performance. Together they show the short spelling used as a complete professional name, both on record covers and as an author's byline.

Pronunciation and American popularity

Tammi is pronounced TAM-ee, with the first syllable stressed and the vowel of “cat.” The double m does not create a separate syllable. Its final i gives it the same ending sound as Tammy's y.

The name reached its largest American annual total in 1968, with 873 girls and a rank of #297. It remained close to that total in 1970, with 853 girls, before falling to 213 in 1980 and 37 in 1990. The exact spelling is therefore particularly associated with the late 1960s and early 1970s in American records.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Wiktionary and Wikipedia material is adapted with attribution under CC BY-SA 4.0 where applicable. American popularity figures use the local Social Security Administration series for this exact spelling; name-sex-year totals below five are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How popular is Tammi?

In 2025, Tammi was not listed in the latest American name records. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1950; its largest annual count was 873 in 1968. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.

How common is Tammi?

Tammi had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2013, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2013
1 in 608,000
6 of 3,645,938 births
Among girls only
1 in 292,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2013
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
421,196 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Tammi sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2013 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 421,196 children born in 2013 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tammi. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Tammis were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Tammi was born before 1969 — so the typical Tammi is around 56 today.

Median birth year
1969
About 56 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
46.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.6%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
13,884
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 46.9% of all recorded uses (6,514).

Is Tammi rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1968 (873)
Years since peak
57
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
20.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#297
1968

Spellings of Tammi

Tammi is not the most common spelling — Tammy is, with 42.5% against Tammi's 1.8%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Tammi is used

Across 1910–2025, Tammi was most concentrated in Nebraska — about 1 in 6,250 girls, against 1 in 13,065 across all states with data. It was least common in Utah (1 in 100,000).

116 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Nebraska1 in 6,250
  2. 2Wisconsin1 in 7,143
  3. 3Iowa1 in 7,692
  4. 4Washington1 in 7,692
  5. 5Colorado1 in 8,333
  6. 6Michigan1 in 8,333
  7. 7Minnesota1 in 8,333
  8. 8Oklahoma1 in 8,333

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Tammi has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Tammi around the world

Where Tammi ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2014
    #4,684
    in 2014
  • Scotland
    1975–2012
    #665
    in 2012
  • South Australia
    1966–2005
    #775
    in 2005

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Tammi

People whose public names include Tammi, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Tammi in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Tammi. Linked forms have their own page here.

TamiTammyTammie

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Tammi by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#297
1968
Peak year
1968
873 that year
First recorded
1950
Last recorded
2013
All-time count
13,884
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Tammi

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

TamiaTameraTamarTamraTamyaTammieTamiTamekaTamikaTamyraTamelaTamieTamiyaTamaraTammyTommiSammiTamikoTamalaTamariEmmiTamiraTamiyahTamica

Names with a curve like Tammi

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Tammi, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

TonjaShelliShellieAngeliaGenaShawnLorieKarynDanetteTamelaWendiKimberley

Sibling names for Tammi

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Tammi

Top names of 1968, Tammi's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1968Girls' names starting with T