An English and Scots patronymic, ‘son of Thom’ — brought to Ulster in numbers by Plantation settlers.
Scottish/English Origin · Root meaning ‘son of Thomas’
Thompson is a patronymic built on Thom, a familiar short form of Thomas, and arrived in Ireland as a settler surname rather than a translated Gaelic one. It became especially common across Ulster following the Plantation of the early 1600s.
A name with no Irish root to speak of, and no need to invent one — four centuries of Ulster ground have made it as local as any surname gets.
Irish form: (no Gaelic form)
