Dominic Holland's Real Name: Dominic Holland

Quick answer: Dominic Holland is known professionally as Dominic Holland. The Library of Congress heading is "Holland, Dominic," based on his 2002 novel Only in America. He is an English stand-up comedian, broadcaster, and author who won the Perrier newcomer award at the 1993 Edinburgh Festival and is the father of the actor Tom Holland (The Guardian; The Guardian).

Real name and early life

A 2002 Guardian Q&A described Holland as 34 at the time, said he grew up in Middlesex, and recorded that he studied textile management at Leeds University before working as a sales representative and beginning stand-up in his spare time. A 2017 Guardian feature said he had recently turned 50, a figure consistent with a mid-1960s birth year; a more precise date appearing in some databases is not independently confirmed in the sources used here and is not used in the title.

Career highlights

The 2002 Guardian profile states that he won the Perrier newcomer of the year award at the 1993 Edinburgh Festival and had since appeared regularly on television and radio. That piece was published as he prepared to discuss his first novel, Only in America, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival; the book is also the work cited in his Library of Congress name record. In the same Q&A he described himself as a husband and father of boys and joked that his greatest fear was sitting down to write something funny and finding that nothing came.

In 2017 he returned to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a free show, Eclipsed, 24 years after the newcomer award, the Guardian reported. The same article, and a BBC report the same month, described the show as addressing how his own career had been overtaken by that of his son Tom, then starring in Spider-Man: Homecoming. The Guardian noted that Tom had also played Billy Elliot on stage and had won a BAFTA Rising Star award, and that Dominic and his wife have four sons. This page records the family connection because both people are public performers; it does not add unsourced private detail.

Name notes for searchers

Dominic Holland is the name used in Guardian and BBC coverage and in the Library of Congress heading. Searchers looking for the 1993 Perrier newcomer, or for Tom Holland's father, are usually aiming at the same person.