Gerard

Gerard is a masculine forename of Proto-Germanic origin, variations of which exist in many Germanic and Romance languages. Like many other early Germanic names, it is dithematic, consisting of two meaningful constituents put together. In this case, those constituents are gari > ger- (meaning 'spear') and -hard (meaning 'hard/strong/brave').

Key facts

Given name.name: Gerard
Given name.pronunciation: ,
Given name.gender: male
Given name.meaning: "strong spear"
Given name.region: common in regions where Germanic and/or Romance languages are spoken
Given name.origin: Germanic
Given name.related names: Gérard, Gerardo, Gerald, Gerd, Gerhard, Gerhardt, Gerhardus, Gerrit, Gerry, Geert, Gert, Gertje, Gherardo, Girard, Guérard, Jerry, Garrett

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Common forms of the name are Gerard (English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Polish and Catalan); Gerrard (English, Scottish, Irish); (Italian, and Spanish); (Portuguese); (Italian); (Northern Italian, now only a surname); (variant forms and , now only surnames, French); (Irish); Gerhardt and Gerhart/Gerhard/Gerhardus (German, Dutch, and Afrikaans); (Hungarian); (Lithuanian) and / (Latvian); (Greece). A few abbreviated forms are Gerry and Jerry (English); (German) and (Afrikaans and Dutch); (Afrikaans and Dutch); (Afrikaans); (Dutch) and (Bulgarian).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Gerard” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.