Garret
- Pronunciation
- [Ga-rret]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Variant Of Gerald Rules By The Spear.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Garret
Garret is a variant spelling of Garrett, an English and Irish surname transferred to given-name use, with roots in two converging traditions. One stream traces to the Germanic name Gerard, from ger, "spear," and hard, "brave" or "strong" — giving the underlying meaning "brave spearman" or "rules by the spear." A second stream draws on the medieval English surname Garrett, which itself was an anglicization of the Old French given name Gérard or Gairat as brought to England by Norman settlers after 1066. The result is a name whose sound and spelling reflect centuries of Norman-English overlay on Germanic roots, settling into the distinctively Irish-American surname-name register in which it most commonly appears today.
Garret entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 at its peak rank of #420 and remained on the chart through 2007, a brief but genuine run of eight years. In its final charted year it ranked #941 with 211 boys. More than 2,800 boys were named Garret within the SSA top-1000 era — a relatively compact total that reflects its short window in the rankings. Its absence from the top-1000 after 2007 makes it a name that is neither broadly overused nor unfamiliar, which can be precisely what parents seeking a strong, historical masculine name are looking for. Variants include Gareth, Garett, Garrard, Garreth, Gary, Gerrit, Jared, and Jarod — a wide range that illustrates how deep and various the family of spear-name descendants runs in English.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Garret
US Popularity History (2000–2007)
Annual US births named Garret by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 590 boys named Garret (boy rank #420 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2007, ranked #941 for boys (211 US births). That's 521 places below its 2000 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Garret Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2006–2015 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Garret the strongest states are Iowa, Colorado, Indiana.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | #854 | 40 |
| 2 | Arizona | #846 | 17 |
| 3 | Michigan | #835 | 32 |
| 4 | Washington | #779 | 35 |
| 5 | Ohio | #721 | 67 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | #665 | 51 |
| 7 | Missouri | #647 | 22 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | #645 | 17 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #634 | 54 |
| 10 | Indiana | #609 | 27 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2006–2015. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Garret in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gareth | Son Of Lot | Male | Arthurian |
| Garett | Variant Of Gerald Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Garrard | Brave With A Spear | Male | English |
| Garreth | Gentle. Modest And Brave Sir Gareth Was A Legendary Knight Of King Arthur's Round Table. | Male | Arthurian |
| Gary | Carries Spears | Male | English |
| Gerrit | Spear Hard | Male | English |
| Jared | Descending | Male | Hebrew |
| Jarod | Descending | Male | Hebrew |
Looking for names like Garret?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Garret to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Garret against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).