Garey
Masculine
Garey belongs to a set of men's names that dominated the middle of the twentieth century and then left together: Gary, Larry, Terry, Jerry, Barry and Harry, all two syllables, all ending in the same sound, all carried by enormous numbers of American men born in about twenty years. Very few rhyme families that large have receded so completely.
How old is the name Garey?
Garey first appears in US birth records in 1931 — 94 years ago. The typical Garey alive today was born around 1955, making them about 70 years old. About 1,000 people named Garey are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Garey most popular?
Garey peaked in 1952, reaching #907 nationally. See the whole 1952 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Norman surname of uncertain derivation to Garey
The story of Garey
The set is worth looking at as a set. Each name arrived by a different road: one from a town, one from a Latin place name, one from a Germanic compound, one from Greek, one from a French surname, one from a Hebrew one. They have nothing in common historically and everything in common phonetically, and they rose and fell together as if they were one name. That is the rhyme family working: parents were not choosing between etymologies, they were choosing a sound, and once the sound was fashionable every name that fitted it benefited. When the sound went out of fashion, all of them went, regardless of pedigree. A name's history has surprisingly little to do with its curve.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The base name has no etymology of its own. It comes from an American town, which was named after a lawyer who ran a steel corporation, whose own surname is a Norman one of uncertain derivation. So the chain runs back through a person to a surname and stops, and the name means the town, which means the man, which means nothing recoverable.
How the name formed
- A Norman surname of uncertain derivation
- An American steel town named after a man who bore it
- The town's name taken as a first name
- One of a rhyme family that rose and fell together
Pronouncing Garey
GAIR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The -ey ending is one of several spellings of the final sound and changes nothing audible; the standard spelling of this name uses a plain y.
Nicknames for Garey
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1931
- Most boys named
- 194756 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #907reached in 1952
- Change vs 2003
- −14.3%6 in 2013, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Gareys among us
people named Garey are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Garey sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The sound is completely familiar and needs no explaining.
- It is short, plain and pairs cleanly with almost any longer middle name.
- Gar and Gaz are both available and neither is pretentious.
- Gary is the standard spelling and this one will be corrected into it constantly.
- It is strongly associated with one American generation and that association arrives first.
- There is no meaning to give, and the chain stops at a surname.
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Garey
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Gareys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Garey are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Garey in 2025?
- Garey is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Garey with classmates?
- Garey will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More G names
The most-given names starting with G, all years combined.
George#126 · Gary#1073 · Gregory#593 · Gerald#1204 · Gabriel#37 · Glenn#1443 · Gavin#303 · Gordon#1051
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Garey? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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