Weren't they Chinese toms way back when? I thought I had read that somewhere. Maybe it was here. I've also heard them refered to as flying toms, and obviously mounted toms too.
I've always thought tom tom, or just tom was a weird name for them. Snare drum makes sense, bass drum makes sense. Tom does not, and it leads to other weirdness too. Rocket tom, concert tom, roto tom. Roto tom sorta makes sense because you rotate it to adjust the pitch, but it has no shell, so it isn't really a tom at all.
Autocorrect hates tom. I type it tons of times, but it still thinks I'm referring to a person.