Why is a male turkey referred to as a 'Tom'?

Benjamin Franklin proposed the turkey as our national bird, but when Thomas Jefferson opposed the idea, Franklin mockingly called the turkey “Tom”.

Source:

http://yourehistory.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/thanksgiving-tradition-trivia/

I do not know where I heard this from and it may not be correct but I heard that during mating season a male turkey will emit a low drumming noise that sounds like a beating of a tom-tom drum.

I did try to find something about this on the net but came up empty handed.

1) "Some say it goes back to Thomas Jefferson. Originally, the turkey was suppose to be our national bird.
Benjamin Franklin really didn't like the eagle
because he felt it had bad morals because it robbed it's food for a living and it also had lice.
The turkey, however, was more respectable and was a true native bird of North America.
However, others felt that the eagle had a more biblical significance and so it won out over the turkey (never being mentioned in the bible)."
Source and further information:
http://www.brownielocks.com/thanksgiving.html


2) "One English word is related to the Hebrew word teom: the name Thomas. The Online Etymology Dictionary shows how the name came from the cognate Syriac תאמא:

from Gk. Thomas, of Aramaic origin and said to mean "a twin" (John's gospel refers to Thomas as ho legomenos didymos "called the twin;" cf. Syriac toma "twin," Arabic tau'am "twin"). Before the Conquest, found only as the name of a priest. After 1066, one of the most common given names.
Horowitz (p 284) adds that:

Tom like Jack is used to indicate the male of the species. Thus we have "tom Turkey" or "tom cat", the male and tougher variety of those interesting animals. A "tomboy" is a girl who acts like a boy.
(It should be noted that there are other explanations for "tomboy" - there are those that connect it to the word "tumble", because the girl dances - tumbles - around like a boy.)"
Source and further information:
http://www.balashon.com/2008/08/teomim.html


3) "common boys' names have also been used metonymically to stand for boys and/or men in general, as in 'every Dick and Tom'."

"By analogy "boy" can also refer as an anthropomorphic term to a young male (or any male) of another animal, either in general or species-specific; in the last case it may even have a specific term, notably derived from a boy's name, such as "billy goat" for a 'boy' goat, or tomcat (known since 1809, for any male cat; but just Tom, applied to male kittens, is recorded since c.1303)"
Source and further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys

4) "But Tom or tom is also a name used to designate a man or boy whose name is unknown - like Jack or Mac or Tom, Dick, and Harra - and we have tom turkey, tomcat, tomfool, and Tom o'Bedlam."
Source and further information:
"What's in a Word? By Robert M. Gorrell"
http://books.google.com/books?id=ROmDu-bYMRYC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq="tom"+turkey+etymology&source=web&ots=Q8F3X_UTaN&sig=bWtYGSrmBLHhL6EghnLe8NnbsYg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

Because Dick and Harry were already taken?

Nooooooo ... see Mastodon's answer. :)

I love learning the origins of our words, phrases, rituals & traditions. :)

"tom" is a term to define maleness as in "tomcat". One of the definitions of "tom" is "The male of various animals, especially a male cat or turkey. " Turkeys got the nickname "tom" from "tomcat", because they were/are wild and undomesticated birds, and were sexually promiscuous and would get into fights like tomcats.

In "Tomcat," the expression "tom" comes from a book written in the mid-1700s in England called 'The Life and Adventures of a Cat'. The "hero" of the book, a male cat who enjoyed the favours of many female cats, was named Tom. Since then the slang definition of a "tom" is "A male who enjoys the favors of many women; to be sexually active with more than one partner. Used of men."

Same reason a male cat is called a Tom. "Sally" just doesn't sound right.

Well, you can name yours what ever you like! Tom is just a generic name until yours has a unique name of his own!

Ralph and Tom flipped a coin on who got to name it. :)