Geary
A surname with more than one origin: in English records it appears as an old personal-name surname, while in Irish use it can reflect Gaelic forms such as Ó Gadhra/related names or MacGeary traditions.
The #2,895 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 24,935 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The English surname Geary is recorded by older surname writers as descending from an early personal name, with medieval forms such as Geri or Gei. In that sense it is a patronymic surname formed from a given name rather than a place-name or occupation. Irish Geary is more complicated: older Irish scholarship connects it with Gaelic surname forms that were anglicized in several ways, including Geary and Guiry, and in some cases with MacGeary traditions.
History
Lower treated Geary as an old personal name in England, and the surname is found in medieval and later London records. In Ireland, the name has been anglicized from more than one Gaelic source, so families called Geary may not share a single ancestor or single meaning. Because the spelling overlaps across English and Irish usage, modern bearers can have distinct lines of origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A 19th-century surname dictionary even cites a Domesday-era personal name behind Geary, showing how old this name can be in English records.
From the historical record
“GEARING. See Geering. GEARY. An old personal name. Uxor Geri was atenant-in-chief inco. Gloucester. Domesd. Geiy, Geri. Domesd. GEDDES. Several places in Scotland are called Geddes-hill, Geddeston, Geddes- wcll, &c. Hence Gedde is probably a per- sonal name. According to the Statistical Account of Scotland, the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom