A coworker has this first name and doesn’t know where it came from. Googling and various name-origin websites gave me no answers. If it makes a difference, my coworker is a black man in his early 50s.
Don’t know where it came from, but I just read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis which features a character named Tossie. In her case, it is short for Tocelyn, and she is a young lady in the Victorian Era if I recall correctly.
Yes, that’s the example I was thinking of as well. She’s an upper-class Victorian-era British girl.
Also, there was a minor character in one of the Anne of Green Gables books named Aunt Atossa. It was probably an obscure awful name given to an awful character, but I could see it being shortened to Tossie.
Neither name shows up in the top thousand names lists released by the Social Security Administration for every decade since 1890, and neither is of a male character, but it’s all I can think of.
You can do a search on the Social Security Death Index. It produces 146 people with that first name that have died. Quick scan shows many born around the turn of the century. Whole bunch had their social security cards issued in Virginia. Another bunch in New York. While about 90% of them are in the South, some were in Northern States. But, of course, people move.
The movie Papa’s Delicate Condition, w/Jackie Gleason, c. late 50s, early 60s, has the little girl calling her horse Tossie, because the horse was tossing his/her head around, IIRC.
Thanks, everyone. Any other thoughts?
A lot of people just plain made up names for their children, because they wanted them to be ‘unique’ or because they liked the sound. Same reason parents name their kids bizarre things today. Sometimes it’s not any more complicated than that.
Could it stem from shortening of Thomas to Thos.? I’ve seen that written, but never heard anyone addressed as such.
If you pronounce Thomas with a hard T, rather than a Th sound, you might get to Thossie, pronounced as Tossie, maybe?
You can also do a search of the US Census. I can do it online, you may have to use your library.
If you search for “Tossie” as a first name in the 1860/1870 census, you get nothing. But they didn’t have the detail for families that they did later.
In the 1880 census, there are 20 people listed in the census with that name. Again, not always accurate because they tend to have more hits on the father/mother. Waloon can explain why this is.
3 are from Northern states/17 from Southern states. 4 were born in the North, 16 were born in the South. 10 are Black, 10 are White. 17 of the total are under the age of 18. (Almost sound like there’s something going on in or about the 1860-75 period which starts this name).
Ding! Ding! Ding! We may have a winner. 3/4 people who lived in the North in this census either had a mother who was born in Kentucky or some relation to Kentucky.
Guess I’m off to search for Kentucky.
I know I am replying to an 8 year old post. My grandmother from Kentucky was named Tossie. Do you know the origin? I believe sh was of Scottish descent.
I don’t know if it’s related, but Tossey is a surname. There were 165 people with that last name in the 2000 census. Tossie is also a surname but there are apparently fewer than 100 people with that last name.
Good to see this thread revived.
Bit of a guess, but a family shortening for Thomasina (which is not common but is, I think, more used in Scotland, in that sort of generation - the more obvious “Tommy” would be taken for a boy)… ?
Well, back in the late 1960’s my father had a student named Tasi (pronounced as you would in Spanish). His name was actually Tautalatasi Tuato’o, a bona fide American Samoan High Talking Chief, but everyone called him Tasi.
Here is a page that mentions his name (a court document; he is the plaintiff), but I don’t know if it’s the same guy. Google seems to turn up a lot of hits on the name, and it’s not at all clear if they all refer to the same person.
But unfortunately, Walloon isn’t going to give any good advice.