Gary

Where the name comes from

• Germanic, via Norman French (route debated)
  Origin uncertain. The element usually identified is "spear".
  etymonline: Norman form of Old Norse geiri / Old Danish geri "spear".
  etymonline: "masc. proper name, also a surname, from Norman form of Old Norse geiri, Old Danish geri "spear"". The sources agree on "spear" but not on whether the source is Norse or continental Germanic. DMNES has no Gary entry, and no medieval attestations were found.
• American English (place name, then stage name)
  after the city of Gary, Indiana
  Surname Gary (Elbert H. Gary), then the city of Gary, Indiana (laid out 1906), then the stage name of the actor Gary Cooper (1925)
  The 20th-century American name follows Frank James Cooper, whose name was changed to "Gary" in 1925 on the advice of casting director Nan Collins, a native of Gary, Indiana (garycooper.com; Britannica confirms only that his agent changed his name). The city was "named in his honour" for Elbert H. Gary of U.S. Steel (Britannica).

Gary across traditions

• English surname. etymonline notes Gary is "also a surname". The industrialist Elbert H. Gary (1846–1927) carried it, and the steel city of Gary, Indiana (1906) was named for him.
• American film. Gary Cooper (1901–1961) took the name in 1925. The name's US peak followed in the decades after Cooper's stardom. This is a correlation shown by the SSA figures, not a sourced causal claim.
• United States (SSA). 642,441 births in the SSA decade top-200 tables, 1950s–2010s, including the spelling Garry (18,792). Peak decade: the 1950s, at #12 for boys (348,725 births including Garry). Top 100 from the 1950s through the 1980s. Sources: ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1950s.html through names2010s.html.

Who carried it

• Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper) (1901–1961): American film actor. His agent changed his name (Britannica). The name "Gary" came from Gary, Indiana, in 1925 (garycooper.com).
• Elbert Henry Gary (1846–1927): U.S. Steel chairman. The town of Gary, Indiana, laid out in 1906, was named in his honor (Britannica). He is the surname source of the place name.

Forms in other languages

Garry

Gary in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.