LAURA THOMAS

Feminine form of the Late Latin male name Laurus ‘laurel’. St Laura was a 9th-century Spanish nun who met her death in a cauldron of molten lead. Laura is also the name of the woman addressed in the love poetry of the Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304–74), and it owes much of its subsequent popularity to this. There have been various speculations about her identity, but it has not been established with any certainty. He first met her in 1327 while living in Avignon, and she died of the plague in 1348. The popularity of the given name in the English-speaking world has endured since the 19th century, when it was probably imported from Italy.

English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, and South Indian: from the medieval personal name, of Biblical origin, from Aramaic t’ōm’a, a byname meaning ‘twin’. It was borne by one of the disciples of Christ, best known for his scepticism about Christ's resurrection (John 20:24–29). The th- spelling is organic, the initial letter of the name in the Greek New Testament being a theta. The English pronunciation as t rather than th- is the result of French influence from an early date. In Britain the surname is widely distributed throughout the country, but especially common in Wales and Cornwall. The Ukrainian form is Choma. It is found as a personal name among Christians in India, and in the U.S. is used as a family name among families from southern India.