Given name & surname · also Khmer
Som
“moon”
Som is a surname from Khmer, ultimately from Sanskrit. It is used in English and Turkish.
Meaning & origin
Where it comes from
Som comes from Khmer, and ultimately from Sanskrit.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Khmer សោម, from Bengali সোম, from Sanskrit सोम (“moon”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1981. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Som through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 29
- 29 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1981
- 7 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 2021. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 7 in 1981. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,575 as a first name in 2020; 2,147 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Som’s family of names
In English usage, Som as a surname was borrowed from the Khmer form សោម.
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 3
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
Similar names
If you love Som, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Sliwa
“plum tree”
—
Rosheen
“horse” · “fame”
>99% boys
Caubi
“forest” · “green”
>99% boys
Paio
“of the sea”
>99% boys
Bardhyl
“white star” · “white”
99% boys · 1% girls
Zogović
“bird”
—
Poornachandra
“born beneath the full moon”
91% boys · 9% girls
Westleigh
“from the western meadow”
>99% boys