This street takes its name from David Tomb, the owner of Limekiln Dock. According to Marshall "he was married to Miss Joy, and long connected with the successful house of Bateson in Belfast. He owned considerable property in the locality" (John J Marshall, Belfast Telegraph, 19/02/1941). It is included in the list of streets in the Belfast Directory 1831-1832.
"He [David Tomb] was father of the late Henry Joy Tomb, merchant in Belfast, and of that very able lawyer and estimable man, George Tomb, QC, long assistant-barrister in County Wicklow. This most respectable name is probably one of the very oldest in Belfast. It was spelled Tom or Thom in the seventeenth century. They were concerned in the little doings of that age" (George Benn, A History of the Town of Belfast, vol. ii, 1877, p. 174).
Tomb Street is first recorded on Mason's town plan of 1815.