"Tam" as a name is immortalised by Burns's "Tam o' Shanter," where the hapless, whisky-loving hero becomes one of the great characters of Scottish literature. The name is cheerfully unpretentious, and in Burns's poem it anchors the supernatural adventure in the everyday world of the Ayrshire farmer. As a bonnet, the "tam-o'-shanter" has become a symbol of Scottish identity worldwide. In poetry "Tam" represents the ordinary Scottish man, neither hero nor villain, whose encounter with the extraordinary makes great narrative verse possible.

Tam occupies an interesting double life in Scots usage — as both a shortened form of the name Thomas (giving us "Tam o' Shanter," Burns's greatest narrative poem) and as a word for the characteristic flat Scottish cap. In verse, the cap and the name are often inseparable, both evoking the specifically Scottish, specifically male, specifically working-class or rural world that Burns inhabited and celebrated. "Tam o' Shanter" as a poem has made the name resonant with night riding, whisky, supernatural terror, and the limits of male foolishness, so that any "Tam" in a Scots poem carries an intertextual shadow. Students should always consider whether a "Tam" in verse is nodding toward Burns's famous creation.