Famous Toms and Thomases
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50 free Famous Toms and Thomases trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Thomas has been a favourite name for centuries, which means it turns up everywhere: in the White House, in medieval abbeys, on Oscar night, in sporting halls of fame and on the covers of airport paperbacks. Shortened to Tom, it belongs to action heroes, rock singers and champion athletes. This quiz gathers the famous Toms and Thomases in one place. Some questions hand you a clue and four people who share the name, so you have to tell one Thomas from another. Others start with a well-known figure, such as Jefferson, Becket, Hardy or Tom Holland, and ask what he did, who he worked with or what he left behind. A few fictional namesakes, from Tom Sawyer to Thomas the Tank Engine, round things out. It suits pub quiz hosts looking for a themed round, anyone celebrating the Tom or Thomas in their life, and general knowledge fans who like their history, books, film, music and sport mixed together. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Thomas Jefferson died on 4 July 1826, the Declaration's 50th anniversary, hours before which fellow Founding Father?
John Adams
John Adams died that evening, and his last words were about Jefferson, the old rival he did not know had gone a few hours before him.
Q 02Which former Beatle narrated the first two series of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends from 1984?
Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr was hired because producer Britt Allcroft found his voice perfect for narration, not because of his fame. George Carlin replaced him in the American version.
Q 03Which quarterback, only the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL Draft, went on to win seven Super Bowls?
Tom Brady
Tom Brady was the seventh quarterback chosen that year, taken with a compensatory pick the Patriots were given for losing a punter.
Q 04Which Victorian plumber, wrongly credited with inventing the flush toilet, opened the world's first bathroom showroom?
Thomas Crapper
Thomas Crapper held nine patents, none of them for the toilet itself. Manhole covers bearing his company's name in Westminster Abbey are a minor London tourist attraction.
Q 05Which actor, the voice of Woody in Toy Story, won the Best Actor Oscar two years running in the 1990s?
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, making him only the second man to take the award in consecutive years, after Spencer Tracy.
Q 06In a later twist to an English legend, the original Peeping Tom spied on which noblewoman's naked ride through Coventry?
Lady Godiva
Lady Godiva rode, the legend says, to win relief from the heavy taxes of her husband Leofric. The tailor who peeked was only added in later versions of the tale.
Q 07Astronaut Major Tom first appeared in which David Bowie single, rush-released days before Apollo 11 launched?
Space Oddity
Space Oddity was dropped from BBC playlists until the Apollo 11 crew were safely home, once the broadcaster realised how darkly the song ends.
Q 08Which inventor, nicknamed the Wizard of Menlo Park, first won wide fame by unveiling the phonograph in 1877?
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison went on to register 1,093 US patents, an average of one every 10 to 12 days of his adult life.
Q 09Archbishop Thomas Becket was killed in 1170 by four knights loyal to King Henry II inside which church?
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral drew so many pilgrims to his shrine afterwards that Chaucer made a company of them the cast of The Canterbury Tales.
Q 10Which actor, born Thomas Mapother IV, climbed the outside of Dubai's Burj Khalifa for a Mission: Impossible film?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise really did the climb for Ghost Protocol, held by safety cables that were digitally erased from the finished film.
Q 11Which English-born writer rallied the American colonies to independence with the 1776 pamphlet Common Sense?
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine published it anonymously, and for the size of the population it had the largest sale of any book in American history.
Q 12Which Tudor statesman, the author of Utopia, was beheaded for refusing to accept Henry VIII as head of the Church?
Thomas More
Thomas More is now a Catholic saint, and in 2000 Pope John Paul II named him the patron of statesmen and politicians.
Q 13In the Harry Potter books, Tom Marvolo Riddle is the birth name of which dark wizard?
Lord Voldemort
Q 21Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall follows which Putney-born adviser's rapid rise to power at the court of Henry VIII?
Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell was beheaded in 1540 on the orders of the king he had served as chief minister, a loss Henry is said to have regretted.
Q 22Which Dominican friar, nicknamed the Dumb Ox as a student, wrote the Summa Theologica with its five proofs of God?
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas was defended by his teacher Albertus Magnus, who predicted that the quiet student's bellowing would one day be heard throughout the world.
Q 23Which English philosopher argued in Leviathan that life without government would be a war of all against all?
Thomas Hobbes
Lord Voldemort built his new title as an anagram of his old name, a trick translators had to recreate by renaming him in other languages.
Q 14In Mark Twain's novel, which punishment from Aunt Polly does Tom Sawyer trick other children into doing for him?
Whitewashing a fence
Whitewashing a fence turns into a privilege once Tom pretends to enjoy it, and the neighbourhood children hand over their trinkets for a turn.
Q 15Tom Hardy, who later played both Kray twins in Legend, wore a mask as which villain in The Dark Knight Rises?
Bane
Bane's mask was built from a digital map of Hardy's own face and skull, and the actor put on 30 pounds for the part.
Q 16Tom Hiddleston first auditioned to play Thor before director Kenneth Branagh cast him as which Marvel character instead?
Loki
Loki suited him better as the antagonist, Branagh decided, having already worked with Hiddleston on stage in Ivanov and on television in Wallander.
Q 17Which Florida-born rocker led the Heartbreakers and joined Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys?
Tom Petty
Tom Petty traced his love of rock and roll to the age of ten, when he got the chance to meet Elvis Presley.
Q 18Which Welsh singer of It's Not Unusual took his stage name from an Oscar-winning 1963 film?
Tom Jones
Tom Jones was born Thomas Woodward, a coal miner's son, and his manager renamed him to cash in on the hit film of Henry Fielding's novel.
Q 19Which US president, a former head of Princeton University, was born Thomas but went by his middle name?
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson shared the habit with Grover Cleveland, born Stephen, Calvin Coolidge, born John, and Ulysses S. Grant, born Hiram.
Q 20Thomas Jefferson sold his 6,487 books to restart which institution after British troops burned Washington in 1814?
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress lost nearly two-thirds of Jefferson's books in an 1851 fire, and its librarians have spent years buying matching editions to rebuild his collection.
Thomas Hobbes was born early when his mother took fright at news of the Spanish Armada, and he later said she had given birth to twins, himself and fear.
Q 24Which English economist warned in 1798 that population growth would always outrun the food supply?
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus was read closely by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, the two pioneers of evolution by natural selection.
Q 25Thom Yorke formed which band with schoolmates at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire, later recording OK Computer?
Radiohead
Radiohead's singer was born with a paralysed left eye and had five operations on it before he turned six.
Q 26Guitarist Tom DeLonge formed which rock band while still in high school with bassist Mark Hoppus?
Blink-182
Blink-182 made DeLonge famous, yet he has left it twice, and he also co-founded To the Stars, a company that promotes the study of UFOs and fringe science.
Q 27Tom Holland, the future Spider-Man, got his start on the London stage playing the lead in which musical?
Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot the Musical found him after a choreographer saw his hip-hop class perform at a dance festival, and he trained for two years before taking the title role.
Q 28Which make of sports car did Tom Selleck's private eye Thomas Magnum drive around Hawaii in Magnum, P.I.?
Ferrari
Ferrari's open-top 308 GTS became as much a trademark of the show as Selleck's moustache, Hawaiian shirt and Detroit Tigers baseball cap.
Q 29Which duo created the cat-and-mouse cartoon Tom and Jerry at MGM in 1940, a series that won seven Oscars?
Hanna and Barbera
Hanna and Barbera were left off the credits of the first short, Puss Gets the Boot, which named producer Rudolf Ising instead.
Q 30Which Irish actor played Birmingham gang boss Thomas Shelby in the BBC period drama Peaky Blinders?
Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy won the part over Jason Statham after texting the show's creator a reminder that he was an actor.