Gerald
A surname from the personal name Gerald, often indicating descent from an ancestor named Gerald.
The #6,476 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 58,876 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Gerald comes from the old personal name Gerald, ultimately from Germanic elements meaning roughly “spear” and “rule” or “power.” The name passed into English through Old French, where it was widely used as a given name. As a surname, Gerald usually began as a patronymic, marking someone as the son or descendant of a man named Gerald.
History
Medieval records and later surname dictionaries show Gerald often overlapping with Gerard, and in Ireland especially the two names were sometimes confused. Some families carrying Fitz-Gerald forms were later shortened or altered, helping spread Gerald-like surnames in Britain and Ireland. The name remained more familiar as a given name than as a standalone surname, which is why it is relatively uncommon in modern census data.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some 19th-century writers noted that Irish Gerald and Gerard names were sometimes tangled together in family traditions, making the history of individual branches tricky to untangle.
From the historical record
“GIRARDOT J Diet.), with Fr. dim. suff. -in, -ot. GIRAUD (Fr.) form of Gerald, q.v. in Diet. GLUCKSTEIN (Ger.) Lucky Stone [glucli, good luck, M.H.Ger. geliicke -\- stein,”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)