Tommy

Slang for British Soldier

The first known use of Tommy in reference to the British soldier was back in 1743. It came from the fact that there were a lot of young British men named Tommy Atkins, so it was a common name. Later in 1815 the army rolled out new forms and pay books where all the example pages were filled out with the name Tommy Atkinson. After that Tommy just sort of stuck for any British soldier.